Vampire Heart
by Velkan Nobody
Summary: Two human, 16-year-old twins -boy and girl- wake up one day and find themselves turned into white lion cubs in the Pridelands. To survive, they must learn to behave as true lions and bury the demons of their human life. IMPROVED!
1. Chapter 1

**Vampire Heart**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own TLK.

**Note:** This is my first fanfic! :D English is not my first language; if some things were rather difficult to understand from chs. 1-7, it's most likely because of that. However, I've made adjustments to those chapters (which hadn't been checked by a beta-reader when I first uploaded them) and, additionally, had them 'beta-read' (thank you, Arbarano! :D ). Old readers might want might want to check out the improved chapters (although you don't necessarily have to). If you're a new reader, I hope you enjoy this story; I promise to do my best to always keep you hooked! :)

Oh! One other thing: please review! I'd like to know what you think of the improved chapters :)

**Storyline:** For the purposes of this story, I _kinda_ messed with the conventional storyline: Kopa was born AFTER the events in TLK 2 (that would make him Kiara's younger brother).

**Until now, only chs. 1-4 have been adjusted; the improvements to chs. 5-7 will be added eventually (when I find the time to upload them :/). Anyway, I'm really sorry about that.**

* * *

_...we lay under the emptiness and drifted slowly outward, and somewhere in the wilderness we found salvation scratched into the earth like a message._ (...But Home Is Nowhere, AFI)

* * *

**Chapter 1**

* * *

_"Your kiss," he moaned, "it's killing me."_

_He felt her fangs sink deeper into his neck. Each time he breathed, less air flowed into his lungs. Oxygen seemed to deliberately evade his gaping mouth. It didn't take long for him to begin panting. As his attacker's strong jaws shut around his flesh, alternating shivers of hot and cold shot through his weary spine. _

_After a while, he managed to break free. Blood gushed from the fresh wound like water from an open faucet, and he could sense his skin and muscles had been severely shredded. Stumbling backwards, he realized the girl in front of him was not the one he was expecting._

_"Who are you? Where's Alice?" he asked nervously._

_"She was right, you know," she said, completely ignoring his questions. _

_Her fiery blue eyes met his and blazed hungrily under the sick pallor of the streaking moonlight. Her astonishing beauty, though, could not extinguish his bright fear. Upon glancing at her bloodstained grin, he recoiled, disgusted beyond words._

_"You do taste delicious," she continued, licking her fangs clean._

_"Wait, I know you," he muttered, a vivid slideshow of fresh memories flashing through his mind. "You're __her __friend; she introduced us at the party."_

_"Good," slurred the girl, sounding terrifyingly seductive. "That means I wasn't worth forgetting. I usually have that effect on people." _

_Subsequently, she cast an absent gaze around the bleak streets. The many windows which stippled the skyscrapers glowed with those modern artificial lights she loathed so much. Through the years that had ticked before her, the world itself had become precisely that: something _artificial_. __And she was doomed to dwell in it for eternity. _

_The recollection of her miseries summoned an ill frown to her alluring visage, obliterating her attractive features. Her wretched soul sparkled through her lifeless eyes, and the boy got a clear view of its supernatural essence. _

_A grossly morbid and yet disturbingly sweet laugh issued through her crimson lips as she looked back at him. _

_"So __many people surround you now," she stated, quite amused by her own remark, "but none will lift a finger to help you."_

_The boy eyed her warily while struggling to maintain his footing. He set his hand on his pierced neck and quickly withdrew it to see the blood._

_"__Can you recall my name?" inquired the vicious girl._

_"Alyra," he mumbled, a faint hint of indecision lingering in his dry voice. "Why did you attack me?"_

_"__She's __falling for you," she replied tersely. "I'm sorry, but we can't have that."_

_"__We__?" he repeated, bewildered. "I don't understand."_

_"You don't have to; it's better that way."_

_"What are you going to do to me?"_

_Alyra chuckled. "I won't kill you, if that's what's worrying you. At least I'll try to restrain myself. After all, you're too tasty to waste in one night."_

_Suddenly, she approached him with a swift forward movement, as if sliding along the pavement, and bit him again in the same spot. He tried to push her away with his hands, but could not move a muscle. With all his strength drained, he collapsed on the street's cold, smooth surface as soon as he was released. His exhausted eyes, which had remained open, scanned the surroundings, but picked up no trace of the fiend. The thunderous racket of car engines and horns travelled through the air from far away and reached his ears while city lights flickered and danced above him, blurring steadily into burning smudges glued to the screen of his vision. Once the dissonant sound subsided, he closed his tired eyes and finally dropped off to sleep. The life in him appeared to be fizzling out._

_Alice… Alice… Alice… Alice…_ The name reverberated in his mind.

"Who's Alice?"

"What's he talking about?"

"He's so weird!"

"What's he doing?"

"He's waking up!"

Kev heard the voices echoing feebly about him. Something pushed his head gently several times; it felt like a muzzle.

Was it a dog? _Don't own one,_ he thought. Was he in the street? _No._ The ground was cold and much too muddy. Only one place he knew fit that particular description; he wondered how on earth he had wound up sleeping in the backyard.

_Hold on!_ What was wrong? His whole body had suffered a drastic change. He could not explain to himself how, though. Definitely, something about his arms and legs felt different; he didn't have as much mobility as he used to. A rather thin yet warming cloth of what he assumed was fur enwrapped him. Additionally, a weird, freaky thing protruded from his butt; a body part with nerves he could control voluntarily. Or so he thought.

His closed eyes prevented him from knowing what had occurred. A big part of him wanted to find out, but his weak side didn't. Unfortunately, the latter got the better of him, saturating his head with sundry fears. What if he had inexplicably turned into a huge insect, like Gregor Samsa, in that book he'd read?

_What was its name again? Oh yeah! "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. _

When he finally mustered enough courage, he compelled his eyelids to split apart. At first, everything was dark and blurry. Eventually, the distorted, talking figures regained their original shapes.

"Gah!" screamed Kev, hopping off the hard surface that supported him and staggering back a little. Out of fright, he scratched a lioness that'd had the misfortune of being close to him at that moment in the face. It was the one who had nuzzled him.

"Ouch!" she cried shrilly, stepping away. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Stay away from me!" he yelled desperately, having noticed that he was in a dim cave of a considerable size, and that he was surrounded by not one, but a dozen lionesses.

"Okay, just calm down," replied the one which might just have been the eldest, with a mild, soothing voice. "Nobody means to harm you."

"This isn't happening! _This isn't happening!_" he bellowed, as if straining to shove a nightmare from his thoughts. However, his loud cries didn't make the situation any less real.

"What the _heck_ is going _on_ here?" he demanded, as warm, salty trickles streaked down his heavy cheeks.

The group stared at him not so much with pity as in confusion. Almost instantaneously, a huge, male lion entered the cave, followed by his light-furred, blue-eyed mate and an odd white lioness cub.

"What is the meaning of all this noise?" he asked in a rather severe tone.

"He's up," muttered the hurt lioness.

The tan lioness's sapphire eyes clung tenaciously to the sight of the replier. "Kiara, dear, what happened to your face?"

"Nothing, Mom," she rejoined sweetly. "It's just the _dummy_ over there; he scratched me."

The mother smiled and licked her daughter in the face. Kiara reciprocated the gesture and sat back along with the rest of the lionesses, watching intently as the male walked closer to Kev. The white cub kept her yellow eyes directed to the scene with the same determination.

The 'alpha male', as Kev had labeled him upon glancing at his robust physique, bore reddish-amber eyes and a sleek, healthy red mane which contrasted with his neat, golden pelt. His gaze depicted harmless curiosity and disorientation. But the boy would not see that. All he could see was a huge, scary lion nearing him.

"Please, don't eat me! I'll do whatever you want!" he pleaded, distressed, as his _mutated _body huddled up into a tight ball.

"What? I wasn't gonna…" croaked the male, retreating a bit. Kev looked in all directions with eyes wide open, panting and terrified to death. "I'm not going to hurt you," he murmured softly, stepping forward again.

"Sir, wait!" interrupted the she-cub, putting herself between them and subsequently turning towards him. "Kev?"

He stared at her perplexed. How…how could she possibly know his name? Immediately, an image hit him hard in the back of the head. His glower of horror wrinkled progressively into a strangely hopeful expression of utter bafflement.

"Jill?" he asked tremulously, a question to which the white cub replied with a nod. "What happened to you? You look…"

"Shh!" she whispered abruptly. "I'll explain more later, but for now just play along and try not to mess it up."

"You know him? Why did you say you didn't when we found you in the savannah?" inquired the King.

"I was in shock," she explained, facing the lion. "I guess that's why I couldn't recognize him then."

She stopped for a second to get some air, her soul praying for him to buy the excuse.

"But I do know him," she added. "He's my brother."

Kev stood frozen behind his sister, ignoring the entire discussion; he was too busy wondering what kind of trouble he had gotten in this time.

By the time the conversation reached a favorable end, unbeknownst to the brooding brother, Jill had trotted to the mouth of the cave, through which daylight entered and weakly illuminated the den. Seeing as he wasn't following, she veered back slightly and beckoned him over to speak to her outside with her left paw. Her shrill call shook him from his mind.

Sprinting clumsily (walking on four legs would require some getting used to), he caught up with her.

Meanwhile, the adult lions remained inside, chatting about the rare newcomers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

The bright sunlight struck Kev's snow-white fur and made it sparkle as if his body were a mirror, blinding any eyes in the way. The view was spectacular from the huge rock formation they stood in. The green of life spread to encompass the whole landscape. Different types of animals abounded and coexisted in this environment, all bathed in the warmth provided by the sun, which pierced the ethereal, blue sky. While the sister was enthralled as she contemplated it all, the brother brooded on the situation and ignored the scenery before him.

For the first time, he realized what he had become. Turning his head back, he allowed his yellow eyes to examine the new body thoroughly. They focused especially on the flailing tail. _The weird, freaky thing_. Its tip was wrapped in a light-brown tuft, which was most likely the only thing that differed in color from the rest of his body.

Jill finished admiring the view and glanced back over her shoulder at her brother.

"Follow me," she whispered, heading to a spot farther from the cave's mouth. Kev's heart was beating intensely, battering his ribcage with its accelerated contractions.

"What… what happened to us?" he asked, his voice quavering.

"I don't know."

Her brother aimed a nervous stare at her. "You said you knew!"

"Don't raise your voice," she ordered. "I'm just as confused as you are."

"You said you'd explain!" he persisted, close to shouting.

"Because you were losing it, okay?" Jill retorted spontaneously, sounding as if she were dangling on the verge of a breakdown. "You were freaking everyone out! You should thank _God_ I recognized you."

The frustrated brother glared at her and gnashed his teeth. He hated being told off; he _had_ to answer back.

"Well," he replied, vexed, "since you are being the reasonable one, would you mind telling what _are_ we going to do?"

"I have an idea."

"Oh, good!" exclaimed the brother sarcastically. "But you have no idea about what's happening, do you? I'm sure your plan will work out perfectly!"

"Just…"

"I'm not done!" interrupted Kev fiercely. "How long have you been awake, anyway? It seems you had time to socialize!"

"Don't be…" tried to interject the she-cub, but her accuser's denunciatory voice eclipsed hers.

"I bet you just love this! Why wouldn't you? You've always been so freaking obsessed with lions at school. But everybody always melted at your feet. Yeah! You were sooo hot. That's why no one ever labeled you like the _freak_ you are!"

The words pinched her nerves and brought bitter tears to her eyes.

"Would you shut up and listen to me for once in your life?" she spat at last, her lips trembling from the male cub's harsh speech. "Do you seriously think I'm enjoying this? I woke up in the middle of nowhere and… and… I saw you asleep by my side. I didn't even know it was you! You don't know what it's like to open your eyes and realize you're all alone. So why don't you quit whining and try to be a _little _bit less of a jerk?"

Kev was rendered mute. He had not taken his sister's feelings into account. He sighed as a blazing flame of guilt burned in the back of his skull. Of all the things he could've said to get back at her, he'd chosen the sharpest of them all: the only words that could kill her.

"S-sorry," he stammered, still in shock by her poignancy and their plight, which had triggered the stupid fight in the first place.

Intending to dry the streamlets adorning her cheeks, the male cub raised his right paw and reached out for her face, although quickly picking up on the size of his claws. After laying it down roughly, he rubbed his head against her neck only to withdraw it quickly. _What was that?_ An instinctive response, he supposed.

The white she-cub appreciated the gesture and proceeded delicately. "It's okay. We can't afford losing each other; we're all alone out here."

Her brother offered a clearly guilt-ridden nod and tried to change the subject. "What was your plan?"

Jill immediately replaced her sad grimace with a cheery grin. The glint in her excited eyes cast a feeble smile upon his muzzle. "Okay," she began, "but first promise to listen without freaking out."

"I promise," he said solemnly, gently placing a paw on his heart whilst his eyelids shielded his yellow orbs.

His sister giggled at the ridiculously consolidated vow. "Alright, but remember: you promised."

"Ahh! Just get it over with," demanded Kev, the friendly smile still glued to his face.

"Well, when I woke up, two lions found us in the savannah and offered to help us…"

"I know," interrupted the male cub. "You were all alone, frightened, blah, blah, blah…"

"You promised!"

Her brother rolled his eyes. "My bad. Carry on."

"Let's see," she mumbled, straining to retrieve the thoughts she'd let loose. The pursuit was fruitless; her idea had slipped back into her subconscious, and she didn't have a search warrant to look _there_.

"You see! You made me lose my string of thought."

"The lions were going to help us…"

"Oh! Yeah, they brought us here. The pride's king, Simba, told me we could stay until our parents were found."

"Our parents? They'll never find them! They don't know we're hu…"

"That's the beauty of it!" she exclaimed brusquely, as though blinded by the resplendence of her unbeatably bright and seemingly flawless plan.

"We will be safe if we hang out with them; they're at the top of the food chain, you know."

"You don't say," jeered Kev.

"And we'll figure out what happened to us in the meantime," added his sister.

That's what worried them the most: the cause. Anything might have happened. Only rags of memories had survived. They used to be human (sixteen year old twins, to be accurate); they were currently attending high school; their parents had suffered a tragic death. Most memories, however, had blurred. All the pieces lay where they had fallen. But that dark place appeared to be far away and out of reach, somewhere in the depths of their obscurest dreams.

"So what do you think?" asked Jill excitedly, with ears perked.

"Do you want the truth?"

The tone with which her brother posed the fatal question crushed her happy mood. Her ears instantly fell back and her head drooped slightly.

"Go ahead," she exclaimed, a fake grin masking her disappointment.

He mused for a second about the right words to employ. "I admire the…courage and ingeniousness…with which you approach the difficult situations of life."

Jill, anticipating the outcome, sighed dejectedly. "But?"

"But…are you…_out of your freaking mind_?"

"Do you have a better idea?" inquired the annoyed sister defiantly.

"Yes," he retorted abruptly. "We can search for a town or city and get people to help us!"

"And how exactly are we gonna do _that_?"

"Well," he said, his tone shivering from uncertainty, "we can talk to each other."

"Oh my God, Kev! That doesn't mean we can with other _people_. For all we know, we might just be _meowing_ to each other!"

A snort of derision issued from his muzzle. "That's ridiculous!"

"Is it? This whole thing is crazy, Kev. How can you be so sure?"

The possibilities loomed in his mind. "I'm not."

"If we wander around the wild in search of human settlements, we'll surely die. It's really dangerous. And even if we found them and managed to make ourselves understood, who knows what they'd do to us."

Kev nodded, thoughtfully considering his sister's anxieties and soon reached the conclusion that she could not be more right.

"Can we really pull this off?" The doubts were still raw in his mind.

"We'll have to."

"At least you have a background," he muttered depressingly. "I won't-"

"Don't worry. Just do as I tell you… no matter what."

"What about their names? I only know the one I scratched. Kiara?"

"Yes," nodded the female cub, "she's Simba's daughter."

"Great," he mumbled, bearing a weary you-gotta-be-kidding-me scowl.

Jill giggled. "Her mother's called Nala, and her younger brother, Kopa. He's about our age, speaking in lion terminology, of course."

"Okay, how old are we in '_lion terminology'_?"

"Hmmm… about three months old, I should say," estimated the lioness cub pensively. For some inexplicable reason, she shot a deep stare at her brother, although he didn't notice. His uncanny resemblance to her felt shocking. _Just like looking at a mirror,_ she reasoned.

The two outsiders sat and gazed dreamily into the blood-red sky. The sun had dissolved completely. A cool, pleasant gust of wind brushed their snow-white furs as the weak, red light of the afternoon dyed them orange.

It seemed they had argued for hours. Kev recalled the sun dazzled and scorched when they had left the cave. Now, it was dying, slowly succumbing to the ravenous jaws of the incipient night.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" whispered a not entirely unfamiliar voice. "The Circle of Life."

The lion with the huge, red mane and brownish-gold fur stood behind them, captivated by the radiant landscape.

"Well? What have you decided?" inquired Simba.

"We'll make it through," she muttered, addressing her brother, and then veered toward the King.

"We'll stay."

"I promise to do everything in my power to help you find your pride again."

The cubs appreciated the lion's touching vow and, for a minute, could not help feeling guilty about lying. It was the only way, though. Their sole hope.

Simba, realizing Kev still quivered slightly in his presence, continued with a joke in a futile attempt to extinguish his fear. "Hey, I won't bite you… as long as you behave," he murmured light-heartedly. The male cub strained to grin, but pulled a creepy grimace instead. Upon picking up on his disturbed countenance, the King frowned repentantly and clarified that he wasn't really going to hurt him under any circumstances.

By the time darkness fell and gusty winds blew violently, the whole pride had settled comfortably inside the den.

Their new eyes allowed the white cubs to see the inside of the cave just as if it were lit with candles. The other cubs slept serenely, their bodies lying sprawled on the ground. At times, cute, high-pitch snores echoed. Their stomachs were full and they'd had a very tiring day outside, playing and running under the burning sun. The adult lions, wide awake, waited eagerly for Kovu, the princess's mate. When he returned, the outsiders knew why. The fearsome lion, which bore a black mane, brown fur, and deadly green eyes, was dragging a dead zebra by the neck.

The hungry lionesses, along with the two males, pierced into its flesh and ripped out enormous chunks. The twins witnessed the gory scene, utterly grossed out. After a while, Simba approached them and dropped two juicy chunks of meat before their eyes. The two outsiders shared a fatal glance of shock and then proceeded to look up at the King.

"Here goes," announced Jill, inhaling deeply. She tore a piece off her chunk, chewed it rapidly, and swallowed it.

As she did so, her wrinkled features loosened progressively into an expression that conveyed pleasure. "Wow! It's…it's really good."

Kev felt like gagging. If he had had anything in his stomach, he surely would have puked it. He watched his sister gobble up the rest of her share and grunted. "If you're still hungry, you can have my part."

"You're not eating? Come on!" she insisted vehemently. "It's really good."

"Sorry, not hungry," he said. _Can't do this_, he thought. With a rumbling, empty stomach, the male white cub chose an isolated spot in one of the mustiest corners of the cave and lay down to sleep. The female cub joined him about half an hour later.

"Why didn't you eat?" she inquired reproachfully at the prostrate ball of white fur beneath her paws.

"I wasn't hungry."

"I can hear your stomach rumbling," she stated, leaning her muzzle down over his ears. "We're gonna talk about this tomorrow."

"Your breath stinks," he growled, rolling on his side and facing away. "Keep your mouth off my face."

Jill sighed grievously and dropped off to slumber. Having a deadly homesickness smothering his heart, a tummy screaming desperately for food, an utterly uncertain future to look up to, and no happy memories on which to rely for comfort, Kev cried himself to sleep a moment later.

* * *

_The movie was almost over now. Jill had laughed to tears in many scenes, but the one with Inspector Clouseau trying to pronounce the Italian detective's name was unbeatable. _

_Kev was buying popcorn outside, when, unexpectedly, a hand tapped him on the shoulder. _

"_Hey, Alice."_

"_Hi. So what's my new boyfriend up to?"_

"_Just buying popcorn. Want some?"_

"_Nah," she shook her head, a beautiful smile glowing through her lips._

_They had been dating for one whole, wonderful month. Kev felt very fortunate; he had definitely won the lottery. Beautiful, smart, funny. Perhaps, the one…_

…_Where was he? Nowhere. Darkness ruled the confines of the room. Soon, another entity broke the unsound stillness with light footsteps. The gloomy silhouette of a man was discernible in the distance. However, its glowing yellow eyes, which cut right through the invasive shadows, suggested anything but a human nature._

"_You can't escape _fate_," said the strange man in an unearthly, guttural tone, before jumping forth with his mouth wide open. Those fangs were huge…_

The horrifying sight startled the male white cub awake. He panted, the scene repeating itself over and over in his mind.

_What was this place? Oh, that's right._ He had forgotten. After scanning the rocky walls surrounding him, Kev cuddled up against his sister and, once again, drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

_Something_ mumbled annoyingly into Kev's ear. It tugged at it for a minute or so, then let go…

Kev refused to open his eyes. As a result, it grabbed his tail and heaved repeatedly. He felt no pain, but it still bothered him beyond description. Attempting to regain his sleep, the cub ignored the disturbances. Approximately five seconds ticked before it decided to prod his belly with its nose.

"Come on!" it moaned. "You lazy bum."

Her scent differed from his sister's. _Wow!_ His keen sense of smell amazed him. Definitely a female. Same age, judging from her young voice. _Who was she?_

The white cub prayed for her to knock it off but, unfortunately, she proceeded to gnaw at his ear after giving up her pokes. _That was it!_

"Quit it!" he demanded harshly, smacking her in the head.

"Ow!" she squealed.

He listened to the light tapping of her quick steps as she scampered away and, deeming it a propitious time to rise, allowed the morning light slip slowly into his yellow orbs as he unshielded them.

Where was Jill? _No…_ Where was _anyone_? He could not catch a single figure in his sights. Loneliness, even though it might've seemed preferable to waking up surrounded by a bunch of predators, felt strangely awkward. The cub, opting to leave the dingy cave, stepped outside and was abruptly showered in the day's freshness. It was as sunny as it'd been yesterday, and the lionesses lay on rocks carefree, resting and enjoying the breathtaking view.

"Good," gasped one, getting to her paws and stretching. "You're up."

She bore innocent, reddish-brown eyes and gold fur similar to her father's. The shallow wound he had inflicted had by now vanished from her face.

Kiara aimed a stern glower at him. "You're a tough scratcher."

"I…ah…you caught…by surprise…uh… I didn't know…I'm sorry!" he whimpered, choking on his own words whilst backing away. The fear that the King's daughter would pounce on him and rip his head off as payback rushed through him, like it was carried in his bloodstream. His heart pounded relentlessly inside his chest, as if wanting to beat its way out.

The princess tilted her head to one side, confused. "Relax, sweetie. I was just teasing. Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay," he replied, heaving a deep sigh of relief which resounded like a shrill whistle.

"Aw… You're such a cute little hairball!"

_Silly._ No other word could describe better how he felt in that precise instant. A sarcastic answer to her comment popped up naturally from the core of his being and hung on to the tip of his tongue impatiently. However, he restrained from letting it out.

"Where's my sister?" he asked instead.

"She went to the water hole with the other cubs."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"My Dad and Kovu are watching over them," she explained, smiling at his concern.

"Male babysitters?" he chuckled. "Well that's new."

Kiara giggled. "None of the lionesses offered and Zazu was sent out on an errand earlier this morning. They didn't have a choice."

"Zazu?"

"The King's major-domo."

"Isn't he the hornbill with the phony accent?"

A twisted smirk drew upon the princess's face; she appeared to be imprisoning something between her jaws. Almost immediately, she burst out laughing, rolling on the ground, while Kev stared at her with a clear expression of disorientation engraved on his face.

"Yes," she replied, still a bit agitated. "When did you meet him?"

"I didn't," he declared. "I just had trouble sleeping because of him. He was outside clucking like crazy. What's his deal?"

True. Zazu had screeched all night long like a pregnant woman in labor, tortured by the contractions and surrounding supportive voices. But that hadn't been what really deprived the white cub of a pleasant sleep; the deadly fangs and evil eyes of the man in his dream had. _You can't escape fate_, he'd said. What had he meant by that? The phrase reverberated in his thoughts like a growing echo, sinking him ever deeper into the recollection of the nightmare, away from the safety of reality.

"I've always wondered that myself," exclaimed the Princess humorously. "If he gets too pushy, just snarl at him. Works for me."

The golden lioness carried on, confiding other tips to her listener, clueless that he'd disconnected. Upon shifting her gaze down toward him, she waved her paw before his lost eyes. "Hellooo… you in there?"

"Ah…" he growled, coming out of it and shaking his head slightly to wake up completely."Sorry."

The outsider could have prolonged the conversation. In fact, his conscience begged him to do so. _Don't let her go back to the scratching issue_, it murmured irritatingly. Besides, he had a load of unanswered and rather embarrassing questions, which he could not trust to some random stranger. For instance, how was he supposed to _go_? What if he messed his fur up? His limbs proved to be useless for such a delicate matter. No thumbs. No fingers. No grasp. If he blundered, all the other lions would smell the urine.

_Yes_, he mused, recalling his remarkable, new-found smelling ability. They would make fun of him!

Nevertheless, the male cub kept his concerns to himself. After all, Kiara would tease him for sure. He did not know her well enough to make that assumption, but her facial expressions and way of talking revealed that there was a mischievous side to the Princess.

Once again, the lioness, picking up on his dreamy stare, looked down at him with a bright glint of worry in her eyes. "You okay?"

"Yes," he lied instinctively, lowering his eyes. "I'm… I'm just worried about Jill, that's all."

"Well, if it's any consolation, my mom had a hard time convincing her to join the other cubs; she didn't want to leave you."

Touched, Kev lifted his eyes and focused on the sky. The pure blueness of its smooth surface appeared to have a lulling effect on his worries. His state of idle tranquility, though, didn't last long; a little paw interrupted it by bestowing a sharp wallop upon the back of his head.

"Ow!" he groaned. "What the…?"

"That's for hitting me," justified a giggly, somehow-familiar voice.

The outsider swung round violently to identify the aggressor. It was a female cub about his age, maybe a little bit younger. Her pelt was light-brown and her eyes a radiant, reddish-amaranth. Kev felt a tight knot forming in his throat and a weird sensation seizing his stomach and guts. Only one girl had made him exhibit such symptoms before. But her eyes were blue and she didn't have nearly as much hair. Nevertheless, she still struck him as _pretty_. What terrified him the most was that he didn't regard her in that manner the same way an ordinary human would.

_No!_ He couldn't allow his new _lion_ nature get the better of him. Despite his efforts to keep his _human_ mind on, her unrivaled resplendence hypnotized him and flipped the switch. The forbidden ideas wended through the blackened corners of his head, arousing deadened emotions. His heart and tummy tickled like they did when he'd bumped into Alice for the first time, at some random party. It couldn't possibly be love. Nor a crush. Just a harmless… _something_, bound to waste away with the days.

Before he could say anything, a call whooshed through the air and reached their ears, which perked up in curiosity. The she-cub departed, following the voice that had pronounced her name.

"Aazi," mumbled Kev, imprinting it in his memory. "Why didn't she go with the rest?"

"Because she overslept," replied Kiara, who had stayed behind witnessing the cute scene between the two younglings. "Just like you."

In response, the white cub sighed the saddest sigh the princess had ever heard. Wondering about its meaning, she raised an eyebrow and, almost instantly afterwards, gasped as the underlying answer bloomed. "You like her."

"Don't be absurd," he exclaimed tersely.

"It's okay," she rejoined, winking at him. "I'm sure she's gonna grow up to be gorgeous."

The Princess' facial expression compelled the weird sensation to cling even harder to him.

"Where did she go?" he inquired with the most nonchalant tone of voice he could muster in hopes of changing the current topic of conversation.

"To her mother, to clean up."

"Oh…I envy her. I'd _kill_ to have a bath!"

Kiara giggled and grabbed the outsider by the scruff with her mouth, gently placing him in front of her with his back facing her. He was puzzled, but somehow trusted the lioness. For five seconds, more or less, he waited for something to happen. As nothing did, trivial matters like the one about _going_ took hold again in his mind. _TV… No ordinary man could survive without…_

_What_? A smooth tongue slid from his neck down to his lower back, only millimeters away from soaking part of his tail with gooey saliva as well. Kev squirmed, grossed out to the point of gagging, as more licks brushed his snow-white fur and ruffled it up.

* * *

The sun above glared ragingly down at the earth below, radiating heat and light in all directions and standing its ground, for displacing the moon and purifying the turbid sky had not satisfied it properly.

Not a cloud dared to challenge the fierce star. Obscurity dwellers' prayers had sunk along with them into the comfortable darkness of the underground world. They would rest beneath the surface with the dead until the moon regained its strength and whisked the sun away to unleash their beloved darkness upon the world again. But the balance would never be broken: the sun would strike back.

Nothing lasted forever: no living thing; not the day; not the night. They could not defy the solemn and yet extremely fragile Circle of Life.

Before the outing, the King introduced Jill to the young group. She had seen Dave Salmoni discuss the curious nature of lion cubs on Animal Planet several times. Today, Pride Rock's cubs proved him right. As soon as Simba's voice came to a halt, the open interview began.

"What's with your fur?"

"Where's your pride?"

"Are they all like you where you come from?"

But they did not just ply her with a bazillion questions which were sometimes dumb and hard to answer; they would also study her with their sharp eyes from head to tail and sniff her, as if to _feel_ her essence.

The animal jokes she had read online came in handy; the younglings literally rolled on the ground laughing when Jill told them. She could just as easily have been the most hilarious cub they'd ever met! Thus, much to the red-maned lion's surprise, the outsider blended in rapidly and with no trouble at all.

The cubs led the way to the water hole excitedly while Kovu and Simba straggled along behind them, chatting but never losing sight of their charges. The cubs' rapturous giggles and jolly walking fashion alerted the rest of the animals, who stood out of their way and watched them from the sidelines. Birds of all colors perched on the peaks of trees to witness the bunch passing by.

Jill noticed the remarkable resemblance of the environment to the city; cars and buses flashed through the streets and pedestrians treaded along the sidewalks. In the wild, the lions were the vehicles; the top of the food chain.

"Hey, Jill," hollered one of the cubs. "Does your brother know a lot of jokes too?"

"Not really. But he knows how to pull a lot of pranks."

"Cool!" she gasped, and then carried on with a whispery voice. "Maybe he can pull one on Kopa sometime."

"Why would you want him to do that?"

"Because Kopa's such a show-off!"

_Does that surprise you?_

Well, even _she _was surprised at first. With a father as kind and wise as Simba, Jill hadn't thought the prince would behave all that arrogantly. But his gait clearly suggested a bloated self-esteem and a sense of conceit.

Kopa's royal demeanor, however, did not keep her mind as busy as other things did. She had left her brother to fend for himself. Unbelievably enough, putting up with his ranting would be the least of her problems; she would have to put all her strength together in order to face him and talk about the uncooperative attitude he'd displayed last night. _Oh, well…_ She could deal with him later. For now, she just needed to take a break from this stressful situation, pretend there was still hope and that everything, no matter what, would play itself out favorably.

They finally reached the water hole after a half-hour long stroll. The sun stagnated above it and its radiant light pelted down, making the water sparkle. As the other cubs quenched their thirst, Jill admired the beauty of her surroundings: the sallow grasses, trees, and rare flowers. The different animals that showed up to drink caught her attention.

It all looked so dynamic. So cinematic. _Like an old motion-picture film,_ she mused, recalling how she loved watching black-and-white movies with her father back home. This was her favorite movie, her dream come true. Her celluloid fantasy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

_The night rose with the sun's death and swallowed its liquid corpse until not one single drop of its resplendence remained. The artificial lights of buildings camouflaged the stars burning miles above, conferring upon the sky's vaporous surface a hazy purplish hue. _

_A girl with long black hair and sharp blue eyes leaned against the red brick wall of one of the city's many empty alleys, which was decorated with vivid graffiti. She'd first laid eyes on an enormous, fuzzy green inscription which said something about mother-in-laws and whores being the same thing. The rest of them, not as big in size or as complex in aesthetic design, rudely covered the spaces around the first, corrupting its magnificence. Some of them she couldn't even read because of the unintelligible writing style. Others, like those in German reinforced with an imperfect Swastika emblem, she just didn't understand._

_She could hear the traffic rumbling harshly through the nearby avenues and pedestrians chattering and striding out of __sight__. The falling darkness seemed to progressively muffle the mechanical cries of urban civilization. _

_The bitter taste of mingled loneliness and silence ended up arousing a funny feeling of discomfort in her head and sinking her spirit in a deep well of disillusion. _

_Finally deciding to fool around with her cell phone, she absently strayed deeper into the dim-lit place. She was busily typing a text message meant for her brother at an inestimable speed, when two ice-cold hands blinded her temporarily from behind. The numbing touch blew intense shivers down her spine. Startled, the young girl spun round violently._

_"Aiden!" she gasped, breathing out in relief. "I thought you were going to ditch me."_

_"You know I'd never do that, baby. So… I see you found a nice place where to make out."_

_"I want to show you a trick, first," she whispered seductively. "You're just gonna _love _it…"_

_The girl focused on the gleaming silver pendant hanging from the chain around her date's neck. It was the outline of a star with its head pointing down toward the paving stones that supported their feet. Subsequently, she looked into his eyes, which appeared to blaze with a light-blue anxiety. _

_"I'll need one of your belongings," she explained, slyly averting her gaze from his blazing orbs. "Hmmm… How about your chain?"_

_"Okay," he replied with a slight hint of hesitation, taking it off with an air of reluctance and placing it gently on her palm. "What exactly are you planning?"_

_"Turn around," she commanded, leaving his query to float unanswered in the contaminated city breeze. "I'll imitate your voice. Let's see if I can fool you."_

_"And you need my chain to do it?"_

_"Don't worry! It'll be fine," stated the girl, having discerned an unsettling tone of mistrust in his speech. "It's all part of the show." _

_Rolling his eyes, Aiden complied and waited with arms crossed. For a second or two, not a sound escaped their mouths. In the end, a rather shrill mumble issued from the one that was to mimic the other. Seeing as the feigned voice bore no resemblance whatsoever to his, the young man cackled mockingly. His shaggy brown hair seemed to bounce up and down while he did so._

_"You see?" he hollered victoriously. "You're a disaster!"_

_"But I _did _fool you," countered the girl._

_The unexpected and incisively foreboding reply compelled Aiden to glance back. Feeling the sight of the cross she held in front of him sear his demoniacal eyes, he uttered a groan of pain and recoiled. Petrified before the sacred object, he twisted his face into what could've been a snarl and revealed a pair of monstrous fangs. Nevertheless, the horrid view didn't inspire fear in her._

"_What do you want?" he demanded to know furiously._

"_I'm looking for a friend of yours: blue eyes, tall, blond hair. Sounds familiar?"_

_Aiden did not hesitate; he had been stripped of his protective amulet and forced to face a deadly one. "His name is Lucian. Now, _please_, let me go. I won't hurt you. I… I promise."_

_His date smiled sympathetically at his plea. "I know. You always keep your promises, don't you? Just one last question."_

_The boy eyed his newfound enemy with a ravenous scowl, ready to give an answer to whatever she dared to ask and lay his hands on her neck as soon as she released him. He couldn't, after all, let her live with the information he'd given her about his leader. If he didn't kill her, Lucian would surely destroy _him_._

"_Were you involved in Evelyn Hart's murder?"_

"_Evelyn Hart?" queried the fiend as a bright spark of what the girl foolishly believed was fear burned behind his lifeless irises. "I don't know an Evelyn Hart."_

_She watched his agony intensify as she brought the cross closer to him. "You sure?"_

"_Okay! Okay! I was!" yelped the creature, staggering on the verge of a paroxysm of convulsions. "But it wasn't just me. We _all _took part in it."_

_In response, the girl lowered her head mournfully, as if a shadow had stolen her soul._

"_You know?" she started, her voice trembling in grief. Draining tears as pure as her diamond eyes, she fumbled for the stake she carried in the back of her jeans with her spare hand. _"_She was my mother," she concluded, and drove the wooden weapon through the monster's chest with all her strength._

_Aiden gaped in disbelief as he felt the sharp tool dig into his ribcage and pierce his still heart. He caught a faint glimpse of the rotten, blackish blood flowing out copiously through the wound before his body smoldered helplessly into ashes and shattered against the cold alley floor._

_She was inspecting the pile of cinders and charred bones, when her cell phone rang… _

The dream stirred Jill awake. For a moment, she looked around desperately in search of possible menaces, but her fears dissipated as reason filtered her crazy thoughts.

She was safe, with the rest of the pride, in the den, somewhere in Africa, far away from the city, real life, and that monstrous Aiden. He could not harm her; he was dead, and _she_ had killed him. _But why?_ He…he wasn't human, was he?

She tried to summon memories about previous encounters with him, although they still looked awfully blurry. In the end, she convinced herself that keeping the murky waters of the past under the bridge was the best thing she could do now. If they overflowed, they might interfere and jeopardize her cover.

Having eased her mind, she shut her eyes and, once again, fell fast asleep.

* * *

The star of the day rose slowly from underneath the horizon, bathing the kingdom in warmth and yellow-white light. Birds honored sunrise with their warbled songs, which functioned as sweet wake-up calls for the vast African wildlife. Animals left their homes to seek food and water, as they did every day, to comply with the regulations nature dictated for survival.

While the rest of the pride had woken up, the outsiders were still slumbering deeply in their self-chosen, secluded spots. Even though the inhabitants of Pride Rock had accepted them, the human siblings still doubted the boundaries of their hospitality, and therefore chose to lie low. Crossing the line, no matter how thick, could have unfortunate consequences.

Light pokes in the ribs roused the female white cub from her sleep. Maybe Aiden craved for revenge and wanted her to wake up so that she would catch a good glimpse of his vengeful, cold-blooded eyes before he swung at her with a lethal blow. Nothing could save her: the lions stood not the slimmest chance against such an unnatural being and, moreover, she wasn't wearing her protective crucifix. Even if a wooden stake appeared magically before her, her paws would not be able to grasp it.

Death was inexorable. The thought of demise lay cuddled up to the she-cub in the cold gap between Kev's beating heart and her own. The terrifying image of the fiend's bite constrained her eyes to open.

"Sorry," Kovu whispered. "We're running late. Wake your brother up, we have to go."

"Go?" she asked at an almost inaudible volume. "Where?"

"Pouncing lessons, remember? We talked about them."

_Right!_ She had returned exhausted the night before and barely remembered anything she had been told then. Indeed, she had discussed _something_ with Kovu, but she couldn't remember exactly _what_. After Kovu had mentioned it, the whole thing suddenly smacked her in the head.

She would have to take pouncing lessons along with the rest of the cubs and drag his brother all the way if he refused to go as well. _Yep. That was it._

The black-maned lion nudged her with his muzzle one last time, to which the cub hastily hopped to her paws. As soon as he left the cave to look after the younglings that were waiting outside, Jill tugged at her brother's ear and pulled him from the surreal world he had plunged in. Unlike his sister, Kev had dreamt of the sweetest moments of his life as a human; no demons lurked and no bloodshed stained the beautiful sights. However, the soft, cotton-white clouds he was joyfully riding disintegrated after the first three tugs, and the ground welcomed him to reality with its sandy arms open.

"Come on, Jill, stop it!"

"Get up! Don't ask why. I forgot to tell you, but I'll explain on the way."

"The way?" inquired the male irritably. "What are you talking about?"

The sister heaved a sigh of weariness. Opting for physical means, she nudged him just like Kovu had done with her. Much to her surprise, he reacted the same way.

Drowsy, the male cub wobbled toward the exit after his sister. A few minutes ticked the day away before the cubs' stroll through the savanna, led by Kovu, began. Marching at a sprightly pace and giggling in ecstasy, they quickly left their babysitters behind on Pride Rock. The '_training arena'_, as the little ones referred to it, was a plot of land overran with tall, withered grasses that camouflaged the lions perfectly. The outsiders' furs, though, bleached the yellow backdrop slightly.

"Who dares to go first?" asked the adult lion in a defiant, yet playful tone.

Immediately, Kopa stepped forward, his chest over-inflated with confidence. The Prince of Pride Rock bore a brownish tuft on the head and brownish-gold fur, slightly darker than that of his father. His reddish-amber eyes, however, were proof enough of his unquestionable blood bond to Simba.

Kovu rolled his eyes at Kopa's demonstration of courage and happened to catch sight of the female foreigner. "Jill, you're fighting him. Just remember the three basic rules: relax, take impulse, and pounce!"

The Prince snorted derisively and eyed his sister's mate. "Are you serious?"

"I promise not to hurt you _too _much…" teased the white cub.

Kev stared at her dumbfounded, thinking she had lost her sanity. He braced his eyes for the scene that would roll before him and wished her luck inwardly. Perhaps, her butt-kicking experience wouldn't be as painful and humiliating as he pictured it.

A deadly silence overpowered the arena. Finally, the King's son leapt on her. Skillfully, she dodged the male's charge and pinned him while he was still airborne. All the spectators, including Kopa himself, dropped their jaws incredulously.

The black-maned adult stumbled on words. "How…how…did you do _that_?"

"Yes, Jill. How?" asked Kev, just as intrigued.

"You cheated! You had an unfair advantage!" protested the young prince, still nailed to the ground.

"Being a better lion's no unfair advantage," exclaimed the victor, bringing her head closer to his and taking pleasure in his flaming, sore-loser glare.

Since the adult insisted on having his question answered, Jill released the golden cub, who rolled to his paws in the blink of an eye, and cleaved her focus to his brawny form.

"I come from a tough pride," she lied indifferently. With everyone satisfied by the response, their training continued.

The blazing sun soon slid upward and poised on its highest peak. Its suffocating heat waves plummeted down into the thick savannas and strew among all its dwellers.

The male white cub approached his sister, an evident frown of bafflement imprinted on his face.

"How did you really pull it off?"

"Animal Planet," she giggled silently. "Dave Salmoni."

"Really? He teaches this stuff for people in our situation?"

"Of course not," she snorted, discerning the sarcasm. "He usually talks about the lions' patterns of attack. If you know them, it's easy to come up with a way to evade them, especially with _this_ body."

"Okay," he muttered tersely, cutting her short before she could start another of her long, eloquent speeches regarding lion behavior, hunting techniques and family structure among other related but boring topics.

They always tried his patience beyond words.

* * *

An oddly calm and dreary day befell Pride Rock. Time wore out disturbingly slow in the monolithic dwelling, and the lionesses made the most of it.

Taking advantage of the younglings' absence, they discussed the newcomers' fate. Kiara, the youngest lioness involved in the polemic, protested her parents' call; not only did she consider it unfairly unilateral, but also qualified it as _wrong._ And although her arguments were strong, the rest of the pride seemed to favor the King's judgment over hers.

"Why can't we let them stay?" she asked complainingly once again.

"We _are_ letting them stay," explained the King calmly. "But if we find their parents or their pride, we'll have to let them go."

"Daddy, they were abandoned!" exclaimed the daughter vehemently, transmitting the glint of sharp emotion in her eyes to his. "Who knows _what_ kind of parents they have. They might be better off with us!"

"Honey," chimed in Nala with a soothing voice, "you must understand that we don't have the right to take them."

What made the whole issue so cataclysmic for the young princess was that she had grown very fond of the outsiders. After grooming Kev and holding a friendly conversation with Jill the night before, exhaustion had bowled her over. While her body retrieved its strength with a pleasant sleep, the dregs of her mind manifested themselves in a sugar-sweet yet farfetched dream, where she was an actual mother.

_Children…_

She desired them so strongly. Yet for some reason beyond her comprehension, she could not have them. She and Kovu had attempted to conceive a cub many times before, but not once had they succeeded. Kiara always compelled herself to mask her agony behind smiley faces and a cheery frame of mind, while inside, shrill screeches of lamentation burned through her veins.

She felt like a mother without her child.

Now, fate had granted her a second chance: a second chance her father seemed determined to shatter.

"You're right, I guess," she muttered, her heart aching bitterly at the sound of her own words.

Her mother turned to the other lionesses. "In the meantime, someone will have to take care of them."

"I can do it!" interposed the Princess abruptly.

"Kiara," Simba chipped in, "it's not easy to be a mother; it takes lots of responsibility."

"I know! Why can't you trust me with this?"

The King's amber orbs locked on hers, a trace of annoyance scintillating in them. "Because the ones involved are living beings. This isn't a game."

"_What?_" she growled, close to snarling. "You don't think I'd take it seriously? All I'm asking for is _one_ chance!"

"You're still too young to…"

"Too young? I'm an _adult_!"

The male lion's mouth opened to express something, but whatever was meant to come out turned into a quiet grunt as his daughter's voice cut him short again.

"Just save it. The truth is you _still_ don't trust me at all!"

She scampered back into the den, rivulets of crystalline tears rushing from her angry eyes. All the lionesses, having witnessed the hard scene, were rendered speechless.

About a minute of silence ticked before Nala decided out to walk after the frustrated princess.

"Nala, we still have to talk about the two cubs," stated the King, a tinge of concern in his voice.

"Next time, you might wanna try being a _lit-tle_ bit more delicate."

The red-maned lion lowered his eyes as the shadows of the cave swallowed his mate's form. His mind submerged in a deep pool of heavy guilt. It wasn't that he didn't _trust_ her; he just felt she wasn't quite ready to handle such a big responsibility as a cub. Children needed constant attention, food, discipline, and, most importantly, love. Despite her obvious capacity for the latter, he still doubted that Kiara could successfully offer the first three.

Fortunately, Zazu arrived right on time to drive the burdensome thoughts away temporarily. "Found out anything about any other white lions roaming around the kingdom?"

"Yes, sir," nodded the hornbill. "A group of gray herons has reported to have seen two white lionesses prowling near the northern boundary. But they couldn't possibly have been looking for the cubs; this happened about seven days ago, sir: before we even found the cubs."

"The northern boundary!" whispered the lion to himself, astounded. He then eyed his major-domo.

"That's close to the place where we found the cubs. The pride must've been wandering around the kingdom a couple of days before they lost them there. And I can almost be sure they continued toward Irushimpa's territory. Seven days, right?"

"Correct, sir."

Simba bore a pensive stare flooded with worry. "Thank you, Zazu. Let me know if you find out anything else."

The bird nodded again and took off, synchronizing smooth glides with soft flutters across the sultry air.

Fear cut a black slice through the King's brain. Irushimpa, the ill-tempered ruler of the north, with whom he'd had serious difficulties reaching a final agreement on the boundaries between the two kingdoms, was not very keen on accepting strangers.

Additionally, white lions lacked a trait regular ones didn't: camouflage.

They would be spotted easily…

* * *

The sun had set. Only dim, red remnants of its radiance hovered in the sky. Mixing with the growing darkness, their brightness evanesced slowly. Twilight clouds collided with each other like tectonic plates, crumpling together.

The female cubs, including Jill, had left for home half an hour ago. Zazu had come to lead the way; obviously, the little ones knew the whereabouts of Pride Rock, but anyone their age could get lost at this time, when the barrier between day and night became barely perceptible.

The male cubs stayed a while longer out in the grasslands, with Kovu watching over them. They all ran and pounced on each other, laughing playfully. All of them, except Kev; he, on the other hand, stood a meter away, witnessing their wild games with a gaze of baffled awe while his mind delved into jagged worries.

His sister, once again, had left him on his own. The day before, though, he'd dealt with adults. Cubs were a completely different matter: much more cheery, frisky, and _violent._

And he didn't even want to imagine what would happen if he gave himself away; without his sister to guide him, he could blunder pretty massively.

_No. Pull yourself together_.

Everything would be all right. He'd done _great_ so far, ignoring everybody and answering with silent, awkward giggles at the mention of his name. Nevertheless, he found it harder and harder to keep that somewhat positive attitude up, especially because of the lofty prince and his overbearing, _alpha-male_ behavior.

Up until now, Kopa had addressed him as _'whitie' _and nudged him rather harshly (although Kev simply figured that was the younglings' way of playing) twice or thrice, but hadn't _truly_ riled him. He was getting there, though.

"Hey," exclaimed the Prince, shoving Kev's thoughts aside. "Don't you want to play too?"

"Nah," replied the outsider, a bit surprised by the sudden and totally unexpected demonstration of friendliness. "I'm okay."

"Why not?" he insisted. His voice acquired a distinct tone of childish defiance. "Are you _afraid_?"

"No."

"Don't worry," exclaimed Kopa, patting the boy on the shoulder with his paw. "It's okay to be scared of kings."

"You know," started Kev delicately, "ever since we met this morning, I've been wondering… is it something that you can't help or do you actually take pride in being an obnoxious, callow-minded show-off?"

The rest of the cubs quit playing. Fixing their eyes on what would probably evolve into a scuffle, they sat down in a circle around the potential contenders.

Kovu, alert, perked up his ears, but refused to interfere just yet. According to him, stopping brawls never solved anything. If he stayed out of the way and let them fight, one would beat the other. End of the story.

_Sure_. There would be some crying and bruises, but nothing worse. Besides, stalling the bout would only delay the inevitable clash.

"I'm not a show-off!" grumbled Kopa.

He didn't know what '_callow_' meant, and his sister had referred to him as '_obnoxious' _on different occasions, although he didn't quite understand it either. But being qualified as a '_show-off'_ always made his mouth foam with rage. Maybe it affected him the most because it was true.

Kev no sooner adopted a shrill tone to imitate the prince's voice, than he began hopping about him in circular motion, giving vent to the mischievous child in him.

"I'm a king, you're not!" he chanted noisily as the others stared intently.

The future king's stern face slowly crinkled up into a scowl. He pressed his paws to the ground and, in a flash, pounced on the white cub, pinning him with all the strength the anger had roused in his young muscles. Despite Kev's efforts to push him away with his hind limbs, the aggressor's body remained still over his.

Simba's son smirked, notably pleased. "Who owns you?"

"And who owns _you_? Oh wait! I know. My sister does!"

The prince pushed harder with his front legs, exerting a suffocating pressure over his victim. As he did so, his tail landed gently on the earth and twitched with satisfaction at the desperate moans he forced out of the outsider's mouth. Notwithstanding his immovability, Kev managed to twist his head slightly and, by mere chance, located the tail's exact position.

"She just got lucky," replied Kopa. "And what does she have to do with us, anyway? At least I'm stronger than _you_."

"Perhaps, but I can still make you squeal like a girl."

Immediately, the white cub withdrew one of his legs from the prince's belly and stomped on his uneasy tail.

As the throbbing sting spread through his nerves, Kopa's reddish-brown eyes widened. "Owww!" he howled in pain.

He got off of Kev and backed a few steps away only to snarl and leap forth again; this time, he tried to bite him. To the spectators' surprise, the victim struggled to keep the aggressor's muzzle as far as possible from his face instead of fighting back.

Deeming the display of aggression his cue, Kovu called the quarrel off, pushing Kopa aside.

"He started it!" complained the Prince.

"No, I didn't!" exclaimed the outsider, rising to his paws whilst his rival did the same.

"Knock it off!" growled Kovu. "We're going home, and if you two start fighting again, you'll be in much more trouble than you're already in. Is that understood?"

The cubs nodded with eyes lowered, although still holding an immense grudge against each other.

In spite of the episode, the walk was quite pleasant. An ominous silence, however, polluted the air. A silence full of guilt and disappointment.

Kev's head, in contrast with the peacefulness of the newborn evening, bustled with a flurry of stressful premonitions. He had promised Jill he'd eat, but now he just wasn't in the mood; not only would he have to endure her habitual lectures, but also the additional ones he'd earned for pissing _Your Crappy Majesty _off. And everybody would surely turn against him. Against the _stranger_.

The injustices of life boiled in his blood. Who would listen to _him_ over the future king? What had he done to deserve such a messed-up existence? Everything was _so _unfair.

But then again, when had life ever been fair to him?


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Darkness had fallen like rain. Shadows emerged, spreading through the world, drowning it in an abysmal sea of obscurity. Thick clouds covered the sky. Even night dwellers feared to leave their dens in this starless, raven-black night. In a few minutes, the wind would begin its sorrowful wail, accompanied by loud whiplashes of thunder. The plants, doomed to face the upcoming storm, formed spooky silhouettes in the dark.

Fortunately, the cubs had returned safely with Kovu by the time the weather worsened. Simba and some lionesses, however, were still out hunting. All stomachs in the cave rumbled relentlessly, eagerly awaiting food. But Kev's was not limited to noises of hunger; it ached from starvation. He hadn't eaten since the first day he woke up in Africa. During the second day, the weakness generated by carrying out physical activities without an inch of spare energy weighed very little. Of course, he didn't strain then like he had done today. The fight with Kopa had exhausted him. Now, the weakness felt lead-heavy.

The black-maned lion approached Jill with eyes lowered. The male white cub looked away, trying not to listen, but the cold air carried the whole conversation to his ears, which pricked up involuntarily. The words shattered in his head, cutting through his nerves like broken glass. When he finally mustered the strength to glance at his sister, he noticed she was coming, followed by Kovu. Anticipating the scolds, the brother sighed.

"I just don't get it, Kev. What are you trying to do?"

"Jill, it's not my fault! If he hadn't behaved like a snobby jerk…"

"He's a freaking prince, for God's sake!" growled the sister brusquely. "Of course he's a snobby jerk!"

"He was trying my patience!"

"And he ticked you off, didn't he?" sighed the she-cub, straining to behave as comprehensively as she could. "Still, you shouldn't have done what you did. There's only one thing left to do."

"What?"

"You're going to swallow your pride and apologize to Kopa."

Kev's yellow eyes widened and glinted with despair. "And reinforce that crappy attitude of his? Are you insane?"

"Reinforce?" interrupted the adult male. "You talk as if he were…"

"A savage, mindless animal? Well, that's what he is… that's what you all are, aren't you?"

The lionesses and cubs overheard. Scornful eyes fell upon the outsider, including Kovu's.

"Dad!" gasped the prince of Pride Rock.

His father entered the cave, the lionesses behind him dragging the lifeless body of a huge buffalo in. Immediately, the cub complained about the scuffle that had taken place earlier, placing himself as the victim. The King's stare revealed it all; he believed in his son. Additionally, in that precise moment, everybody hated the male foreigner. Perhaps, even his sister. Kev's prophecy was being self-fulfilled. _His words_ enraged the lions. _He_ dug his own grave. Oh his tummy grumbled incessantly! Now, Jill's idea sounded like the joyous song of a choir of angels, like the most reasonable thing to do.

"Kopa, I'm… I'm sorry about what happened this afternoon".

The yellowish cub's mouth stopped uttering high-pitch, whiny sounds. A strange expression of surprise and satisfaction clung to his face. The whole pride heaved a quiet sigh of relief in their hearts. Tension lightened until it faded away. A heavenly silence of peace expanded through the den for a brief instant, until the outsider blundered…

"I shouldn't have pointed out your flaws in public" he added unnecessarily.

Before anyone could stop him, the young prince attacked, hitting Kev in the ribs with his head. Damaged by the impact, the cub's lungs could not take air in. His heart pumped faster, but not enough oxygen aided his weary muscles. He staggered until his limbs gave in.

Rising to his paws with difficulty, he stumbled back and fell again. This time, his sister worried and helped him.

"Are you okay?"

"Changing sides again?" he asked, winded. "I thought you had settled for them".

_Ahh!_ The stomachache was killing him. The remaining embers of strength burned into cinders slowly. A pale languor seized him. _Odd_. He remembered feeling like this before. That devastating lack of energy. Maybe… _No! It couldn't be!_

Desperately, the white cub scampered out of the den, into the perilous night. Blackness ruled the world. Occasionally, flashes of white light illuminated the fields, only to be devoured by the shadows at the tick of a second. _The water hole… where was it?_ Jill had told him how to get there, in case he ever needed to. Kev made a great effort to drag his legs to it. Bright bolts of lightning pelted down, dazzling him. The roaring thunder pounded on his eardrums. _Ah!_ His improved hearing ability was _such_ a burden!

Finally, after having lost track of time (not really: he had lost it the first day this cruel _prank of fate_ began), he reached the water hole, extremely tired. However, he could not bring himself to do what he had in mind. _What if…_

"Hey, what are you so afraid of?"

That voice! The cub turned his head. A blonde girl with penetrating, blue eyes was sitting on a smooth rock. Something eerie and evil glimmered in them when lightning flashed.

"Alice, you can't be here" reasoned Kev. "Am I hallucinating?"

"Perhaps", she giggled. "Really, you should eat if you want to make it through. But that's not what's troubling you now, is it?"

Kev remained silent. The magic behind those perfect eyes still had him spellbound.

"Darling, your reflection will be there. Trust me; just take a look. When have I ever failed you?"

The outsider headed to the edge, cackling madly at the relieving sight of his wavy reflection. "You're right".

"Who are you talking to?"

Kiara was standing behind him, instead of his girlfriend. She had followed him, preoccupied, after he rushed out of the cave frantically.

"Everything's all right", he panted gleefully, "I'm… I'm alive!"

Kiara pulled a puzzled, what-the-hell-is-he-talking-about gaze. "Of course you are. Why did you come here?"

"I had to see…"

The princess, trying to add a little bit of humor to the situation, replied: "See what? Your reflection? That's kinda narcissistic, don't you think?"

"It's not about looking pretty or ugly", explained the white cub, giggling, playing along with her light-hearted mood. "It's about making sure your reflection's still there!"

This time, the gold-furred lioness was freaked out. Her amber eyes flooded with concern.

"What if you can't see it?" she asked, out of mere curiosity.

"Well, it means you're dead".

Instantly, the male cub closed his tired, yellow eyes and collapsed. The princess entered a brief state of shock. _He said "dead" and passed out! What if he really dies?_ Her heart contracted and relaxed faster as she approached Kev's body and plastered her ear against his chest, hoping to detect signs of life. The light beats dispelled her fears. She grabbed him by the scruff with her mouth and took off before the first silver drops shattered the ground.

* * *

_Electronic music bounced off the walls of the room terribly cramped with hammered people and stormed into the dancers' ears, exerting an unpleasant pressure over their heads. The alcohol made it all worth it, though. Bright lights of all colors glowed and exploded. The environment was so confusing, so drunken… and highly addictive. Time wasted away, but nobody noticed. Nobody cared. Responsibility could wait for a couple of hours more._

_Life had been reduced to floating in an oblivious sea of beer, being carried away by its foamy waves, and admiring the stifling, gray clouds of cigarette smoke above. Kev was there, hoping that the fermented, yellow seas would elevate him to the height of the intoxicating fog and alleviate his existential pain. He wished he could forget all his losses, forget all about everything. He wanted to lose sight to never find it again. Remain in this place, disassociated, forever. But everything ends, he mused…_

"_What's wrong? Aren't you having fun?"_

"_Huh? Alice, the music's too loud. Can't hear you."_

"_ARE YOU HAVING FUN!"_

"_Oh… yes"._

"_Well it doesn't look like you are"._

"_It's just the beer… makes me feel depressed"._

_The girl rolled her eyes and ignored her boyfriend. It had been three months, and she still demonstrated as much interest in him as she had done when they first met. Kev knew how fortunate he was. However, he lied when he said the alcohol had caused this uneasy mood. Two young men and a young girl stood a few meters away, still as dead people, staring sternly at him, their eyes glaring sinisterly with senseless hatred. They provoked the discomfort. Those suspicious friends of her. Maybe they were jealous. Maybe the girl was a lesbian and felt jealous too. Maybe he was just imagining it. All perfectly good explanations (actually, this surprised him; he wasn't as plastered as he thought). _

_Oh, but their mysterious eyes focused on him for a totally different reason. He knew they knew he knew. Ha ha! What a funny sentence! Ah nooo… his head swirled. Time to slow it down with the beer, he thought. What the hell… he had already crossed the line. A few more would not kill him. _

_The three hearts Kev dreaded, unlike the others in the room completely overwhelmed by the adrenaline that flowed through their bearers' restless bodies, did not beat. Alice had introduced him to the girl and one of the boys. Alyra and Aiden. But he ignored the third's name. Nevertheless, he made it sure to remember his physical features: tall, blonde, blue eyes… _

_Suddenly, a bothersome doubt loomed in his head. How on earth had Alice ever made friends with such supernatural freaks? No one could befriend them. No one alive, at least. No… don't let those wild, imaginative ideas get to you, he reminded himself. They could only destroy one's sanity._

_White lights began to flicker, slowing people's motion. They went on and off and on and off. The unearthly creatures were transfixed to their spots. Nothing in the whole, wide world would force them to move. On. Off. On. Off… And they vanished before his eyes._

_The party continued._

_It must have been three o'clock in the morning when Alice and Kev left. Fatigued, they trudged along the sidewalk, following the depressing fluorescent streetlights. The paved roads looked bleakly empty. The city, oddly enough, was beautifully silent. _

"_Kev", muttered Alice, "why can't we have at least one night of fun? Is it so hard to smile?"_

"_I'm sorry. I'll try to be better next time"._

"_You say that all the time" she sighed complainingly._

"_But this time's for real."_

"_Okay. So… what were you thinking about inside? You looked so disconnected."_

"_I dunno", he replied, "just things"._

"_Such as?"_

_Kev asked the question that had been walloping his mind. "How long have you been friends with Alyra and Aiden?"_

"_They are not close friends. I don't even know if they qualify as friends. I mean, I just met them about two weeks ago."_

"_Oh". Kev's soul regained tranquility. It felt like getting rid of a huge burden weighing on his shoulders._

_In their state of drunken ecstasy and giddiness, the couple discussed countless philosophical matters, too deep to be reasoned about during times of soberness. The party, the sky, the moon, the stars, God. All very interesting themes they gave much thought to as they wandered aimlessly. Cars, music, and…_

"_Do you think it hurts?" Kev asked, "To die?"_

"_It depends on how you die, I guess"._

"_You know," he continued, "I believe the fear of death is the only thing that keeps us alive. It must be horrible"._

_"I don't think death has to be all that bad"._

_"How do you think it feels?"_

_Alice nailed her diamond eyes on her boyfriend's. "Perhaps, it feels pleasant… like a warm bath"._

_Kev discerned something awfully unsettling in the tone with which she had replied. Rather than an opinion, it sounded like a true statement. _

* * *

Kev's eyes opened slowly. The sleep crust tucked in its corners cracked. The cubs surrounded him, wearing worried eyes. His mouth emitted a high-pitch yawn. The weakness that had felt so fatally overwhelming the day before struck him again with the same intensity, making futile his attempt to get up.

A she-cub that bore radiant light-brown fur walked forward, breaking the almost perfect circle the younglings had formed around the outsider.

"Easy, there", she recommended soothingly, gently rubbing her head against his neck.

"Aazi, where's Jill?"

"I'm here", the sister intervened. "You could've gotten killed out there."

Ignoring Jill's remark, the brother rose to his paws with Aazi's help. Those yellow eyes, laden with heavy weariness, barely succeeded in remaining open. The circle split apart completely when Kiara entered the cave. The cubs glanced keenly at the bloody chunk of buffalo meat she held in her mouth. However, they knew who it was meant for and left the den cheerily to play outside under the flaming sun, which had disposed of the stormy night. Jill stayed, but not for long. The princess dropped the food before Kev. Turning her head, she set her eyes on the female cub and then drove them to the exit. It was Jill's cue to get out.

The sister gone, the princess's focus drew back to the male cub. "You will eat this right here, right now. I don't want to hear any whining. And if you refuse, I'll make you eat it."

She had never spoken so firmly in her young adult life. The hardness in her voice conveyed her resoluteness to rear the cub properly. Such determination was seldom seen in royal families. Simba, eavesdropping from the cave's entrance, filled with pride for his daughter. After all, he mused, she would be a terrific mother.

Kev, blown by Kiara's attitude, which had never contradicted itself so severely to her easy-going personality, did not dare to respond with anything that could enrage her. In silence, his head drooped over the chunk and his jaws ripped out a large piece. His sharp teeth clenched and separated repeatedly. The tongue savored the red flesh. Violently wrung out of the meat, the blood slipped down his esophagus, falling onto his empty stomach, instantly followed by the chewed solid parts.

It didn't taste bad at all, he concluded, quite amazed. He finished the meal in a rush, feeding the grumbling empty hole inside that had been bugging him since his first day in the Pridelands. Satisfied with her display of motherly strictness, Kiara allowed the cub to leave.

He dashed out so quickly that the shift in setting, from the dark cave to the luminous exterior, dazed him. A weird pressure clogged his nostrils for a moment.

At the same speed with which he had disappeared from the princess's sight, he scampered down Pride Rock's slope and through the savanna, to join the rest of the cubs, who were playing near a jungle in the north, watched over by Zazu.

The jungle, if it qualified as such, looked like an almost straight, thin line from the sky, cutting the grasslands in two. It was really a long, narrow river, but full of trees instead of water. Beyond it, the Pridelands extended about one kilometer more or so, until reaching the northern boundary. There, an imaginary line marked the end of Simba's turf and the beginning of Irushimpa's. Following the borderline, a few kilometers to the east, the grasses died in a barren, desolate wasteland, where the closest thing to a form of life was the decomposing, organic conglomerate of old elephant bones. The opposite end of the line harbored a vast forest of skyscraping trees. Kev had heard the Pridelanders refer to it as the Forest of the Dead. The reason for its eerie name, however, he did not know.

"What's up?" he asked, clinging to Jill's side, like he accustomed to in the presence of other lions.

He feared one of them would approach and bombard him with a heavy load of difficult questions. He dreaded even more to engage in another scuffle.

"Nothing" replied the sister. "They're just pouncing. So how was dinner?"

"Good".

"Hey, since you're making some attitudinal progress, I thought I'd teach you a little thing. Come with me."

Cautiously, the white she-cub sneaked out of the majordomo's sight and headed into the pseudo-jungle with light, furtive steps. The brother rolled his eyes and followed carelessly.

"What are you going to show me?" inquired Kev, once in.

"I've been told you made a fool of yourself when you fought Kopa".

"So? What could I have done with this useless body?"

"It's not useless", proclaimed the sister, "you just have to know how to move."

"And you're going to teach me?"

"Precisely", she nodded.

A deprecating smirk drew slowly upon his face, to which Jill answered with a stern glare. _This has got to be interesting_, he told himself.

"What do I have to do?"

"Just look", she ordered, her face pulling a cheery smile.

The female cub shifted to an attack position. She pressed her paws against the muddy ground, wiggling her rump in the air. _She wasn't going to… or was she? _Much to Kev's misfortune, she was. _Holly…_ Swiftly and with unrivaled technique, the sister leapt on him, pinning him.

"Get off!" cried the brother.

"Okay", she muttered, letting him go. "Now, you do it."

"Seriously?"

"Come on. Just try to pin me."

The male's facial expression communicated indecision, but it quickly turned into an I'll-give-it-a-shot (but-I'll-surely-screw-it-up) frown. Finally, although with a few mistakes, the brother attempted a pounce. However, Jill dodged and nailed him to the ground again, pretty much the same way she had done with the prince.

"Not bad", said the she-cub.

"Not bad? Then why am I still on the ground?"

"It's not easy; you're gonna have to practice".

Yes. And he would practice in the same wooded area with his sister for the next two weeks. And he would complain a hundred times. And he would be pinned a thousand times. But in the end, he would learn.

Zazu never realized the two outsiders had wandered into the little jungle. When they rejoined the group, it was as if they had never left.

The day turned into night as fast as a flash of light. The stars, which had been screened by the dark gray clouds of the storm the night before, shined more beautifully than ever, piercing the black, velvet sky.

Simba sat in the savanna, not far from Pride Rock, captivated by the arch of immortal, burning lights above him. A few meters away, five cubs lay sprawled on the grasses, just as enthralled by the view as the adult, red-maned lion. The bunch included the outsiders, the prince, Aazi, and Raghu.

Raghu bore gold fur, lighter than the prince's. He did not wear a head tuft. His blue eyes glowed as the light of the stars reflected from them like they were mirrors. The cub, son of Eshe, was Kopa's most loyal friend. Eshe was the lioness that had comforted Nala during Scar's long, tyrannical reign, back when everybody believed Simba dead. They grew very fond of each other and spent much time together, even after giving birth to their respective cubs. As a result, Kopa and Raghu were brought up together and forged a strong friendship.

Even though the prince had differences with the male outsider, tonight he just dedicated to stargaze, as well as the other cubs, resting peacefully on the grassy ground.

Kopa fixed his amber eyes on the female outsider. "My dad says the kings of the past live in the stars and look down on us from there, and that you can always turn to them when you're lost."

"That's a far better point of view than mine", replied Jill.

"Did you use to look at the stars in your homeland?" asked Raghu.

"Not really… we didn't pay much attention to them. There are almost no stars where I come from."

"No stars?" Aazi chipped in. "Didn't you have kings?"

"Sure", answered Kev. "The stars were there. It's just that most of the time other brighter lights screened them. I remember this one time… a huge blackout took over the city… and there were more stars than I had ever seen in my life. I must've been ten years old…"

The white cub blabbered on, oblivious of all the flaws in his story. Jill's eyes widened… _Please shut up! Please SHUT UP!_ The rest directed theirs to Kev, utterly confused.

"What are you talking about?" interrupted the prince, rather rudely.

Finally, Kev realized why the others stared at him like they did. City? Ten years old? Gosh, he really needed to be more careful with the words he employed!

"I'm sorry", he exclaimed, "I was just remembering… a dream."

Aazi faced Kev. "How will you ever join your ancestors if you can't see their stars?"

The outsider smiled, comprehending the she-cub's concern. "I guess it's something you know when you die."

"Aren't you afraid of it?"

"A friend told me once that death feels like a warm bath."

The reply aroused Aazi's curiosity. "Was he from your home pride?"

"It's _she_… and… yeah… I guess you can put it that way."

"Do you miss her?"

"Yes, but I don't think I'll ever see her again."

Simba approached the younglings and warned them that the time to head for the den had arrived. All of them got to their paws. When they stretched, their bones resounded like snapping branches.

They started off. Aazi walked next to Kev.

"Why not?", she inquired.

This time he smiled at the thought of the irony. "She's dead."

* * *

Chapter 5. By far the longest I've posted up to now. I really enjoyed writing it. Hoped you liked it. Please REVIEW... I beg you! And again, sorry about any mistakes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Fourteen days and fourteen nights passed. Nothing above the ordinary took place in the Pridelands. In fact, time ticked so sluggishly and drearily that minutes turned into hours, hours into days, and days into decades. Not even a storm stopped by to break with the sunny uniformity of the mornings. The sky always remained cloudless and blue. When darkness fell, the undying, pale light of the stars and the moon revealed the nights' obscurest secrets, providing nocturnal wanderers with the safety of clear sight.

Relationships between the Pridelanders and the outsiders had not changed much, except for a few things. The fifth night, for instance, the princess woke and stared at the twins sleeping in their isolated, lonely spot. A strange sadness got hold of her heart when she noticed they were shivering to death. In a touching display of empathy, she rose to her paws and headed to the corner where they slumbered, leaving her mate's side. There, she lay down. Her warm, furry body encircled the white cubs. They, in turn, snuggled up to the princess. Since that night, they never had to sleep alone again.

However, the pleasant company Kiara kept them did not rid them of the nightmares. The demons of the past never stopped lurking. Unfortunately, the memories reanimated through their horrid dreams were not enough to fill the void that tormented their confused minds. They would have to wait more than they expected for their unconscious to reveal the whole story.

Their coexistence with the rest of the cubs had improved, although there were still a couple of adjustments that needed to be worked upon. Jill befriended all of the younglings, including the _snobby jerk_. She always tried to speak well of her brother in front of him, in an effort to reduce the frequency of their clashes. The two male cubs never took their encounters to a physical level after the one they had in the savanna, for which they had been severely rebuked. Even though they fought constantly, their confrontations consisted merely in childish insults, pathetic threats, pulling stupid faces, and sticking out their tongues. From time to time, the verbal bouts heated up and got out of _paw_. Whenever this happened, Kev, foreseeing the repercussions of continuing, would shut up and let Kopa win. In the end, it never came to anything worse than two or three mutual harmless shoves. Nevertheless, the fact that they could not get along really bugged Jill.

This day, the fifteenth, a desperate, agonizing cry startled the whole pride, snugly asleep in the cave, awake. The scream, so unbearably loud, reached all of the lions' ears and filled their souls with misery. Their eyes opened spontaneously, falling upon the cub from which the unearthly wailing escaped. It was Jill. Immediately, the adults gathered around her, trying to comfort her with affectionate nuzzles. But nothing could console her. She panted to the rhythm of her agitated heart, her yellow eyes dashing about crazily within their confines in search of her brother. After catching him in her sight, she ran towards the male cub and sank her face in his chest, bursting helplessly into tears.

"Jill, what's wrong?" he asked, baffled and extremely worried.

She did not answer. Both adults and cubs approached.

"Darling, you have to tell us what happened", said Nala, stepping forward. "We can't help you if you don't".

Immediately, she looked up, piercing into her brother's heart with teary eyes.

"He killed Dad" she sobbed, "and took Mom".

"What are you talking about?" inquired Kev.

"Lucian! He did it!"

"Okay, Jill. Calm down. Our parents are safe, with the rest of _our_ pride, remember?"

"What? W-w-what are…" she stammered. Her faltering voice came to a sudden halt when she noticed the glint of desperation in Kev's eyes.

"Who's Lucian?" inquired Simba.

"No one… I… It was just a nightmare. I need some fresh air."

The she-cub walked out of the den with her head drooped. Respecting her implicit desire to be left alone, the rest of the lions allowed her to leave with no objections.

Once out, Jill gazed into the dazzling landscape before her. Under the yellow, summer rain wept by the sun, she felt the wind brushing her resplendent fur gently. The environment's beauty and the melodic songs warbled by the birds lightened the weight of the jumble of emotions that had taken over her head. A deep breath ran through her body, being expelled in the saddest sigh ever. She veered her head to the left and noticed her brother was sitting next to her. Her eyes focused on the stony ground to avoid making contact with his.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The sister looked up, ashamed. "Thank you. I'm sorry I almost blew our cover."

"Don't worry. It must've been hard to remember it all just like that… in a flash."

"So you already knew?" asked Jill with amazement glued to her face.

"I knew _they_ were involved, but I can't remember the details."

"I saw it… in the dream… what happened to Mom and Dad", she muttered mournfully.

Knowing that whatever his sister said would only bring him pain, Kev lowered his eyes. "I guess I have to know".

"Dad tried to stop Lucian, but he couldn't."

"What happened?"

"Lucian strangled him and kidnapped Mom. The _others_ drank her blood until they killed her."

The male cub grunted as the memories, sharp like swords, stabbed their way into his conscious mind from the blurry depths of his unconscious. The most traumatic scene he had ever been forced to witness flashed through his head like a slideshow. It felt like the moment previous to an epileptic attack. His strength, which restrained the tears from gushing out from his eyes like they did from his sister's, unable to fight the powerful images back, fizzled out.

"I want the dreams to stop!" yelled Kev angrily to the sky.

Jill pulled herself together and wiped the tears off her face with her paw, although she could not quit panting. "We must forget. If we don't, it's gonna haunt us forever."

"Forget? You're talking about our parents. Our real family!"

"I know!" she cried, "but we have to."

"How can you say that? I don't understand how you can suppress the memories so easily."

"It's not easy, Kev… and you know… at least one of us has to be strong", she replied, turning and heading back into the cave, putting an end to the bitter conversation once and for all. For the rest of the day, the brother avoided touching the subject again. The other cubs, despite the curiosity itching within them, restrained from asking anything about what had happened, for their parents had ordered them not to hassle the outsiders with their questions.

And so the hours elapsed like they had done for the past two weeks, in an unnaturally slow fashion. The cinematic dynamism Jill had very much admired when she first got to this African haven appeared to have vanished. The diurnal star scorched and the hot air stifled all living things, forcing them to stop their strenuous activities. The two adult lions and some of the lionesses lay sprawled on the savanna ground, gathered under the shade casted by a tree, awaiting a change in temperature to begin hunting. The rest slumbered serenely in the den, tucked up in its comfortable coldness. The cubs were the only active members of the pride, always exploring the kingdom in search of new adventures, no matter how much the heat weighed on them. Astonishingly, their playfulness hovered near immortality. Only a few things, such as storms, bore enough power as to weaken it. When it came to killing it, though, not even the deadliest maelstrom proved fit for the job.

They marched cheerily to the water hole. This time, they were not being watched over by lions or hornbills, but by an irresponsible, bohemian meerkat and its slightly more responsible, equally bohemian warthog pal. Timon and Pumba. The King's best friends. The cubs regarded them as their favorite babysitters. They didn't give annoying orders, knew a bunch of jokes, and were really cool. Not like the other adults. No. These two guys were, but for their years, children just like them. They understood their insatiable appetite for fun.

Once they reached their destination, the group wondered what to play. The prince suggested _fishing_. The one who caught more fishes would be the winner, he stated. Soon after the proposal's approval, the game began.

For a long time, the lions poked their paws violently into the water, splashing it everywhere. Not one succeeded in catching anything. The outsiders, along with the babysitters, sat behind, staring at the frustrated bunch.

Forgetting about the younglings playing at the edge of the water, Timon and Pumba started talking lightheartedly to the white cubs, hoping to break the silence that had settled between them. Weak smiles drew on the outsiders' faces upon listening to the meerkat's drollest jokes, but disappeared instantly. Even though they appreciated the babysitters' intentions, they really did not feel like chatting in that precise moment. Jill's nightmare still loomed in her mind. And Kev, well, was Kev. A couple of _cheer-ups_ and allusions to _Hakuna Matata_ followed the jokes, having more satisfactory effects, but failing to modify the siblings' frame of mind radically.

Suddenly, a loud splash resounded. The explosion echoed, scattering and disintegrating rapidly in the air, arousing a lot of other sounds, which ranged from short, soft giggles to long, crazy cackles of mockery. The poor fool that had slipped was lucky to have fallen in the shallow part, but not as lucky as to not drown in the deep abyss of laughter where the cubs had sunk her. The poor fool was Aazi. She jumped out of the pond and shook herself dry. Her furious, amaranth eyes met those of the ones that rolled on the ground laughing, compelling them to hop to their paws and to shut their mouths.

"Nice, Aazi" teased the prince. "Maybe one day you can teach me how to fish".

"I bet she's better at it than you" interjected Kev, in a burning desire to argue with Kopa rather than in the she-cub's defense.

"Yeah… you should talk! You weren't even fishing."

"It's a stupid game! And, by the way, I'm sure I would've caught much more fishes than all of you together if I had participated."

A snort of derision escaped the yellowish cub's mouth. "Yeah, right."

"I'm not bluffing. You're obviating refraction. That's why you can't catch a thing."

The weird term attracted the whole group's attention. Noticing the deep stares of confusion focused on him, Kev attempted to give an easy explanation, taking the cubs' comprehension limits into account. "You see… the light plays a trick on your eyes by… ah never mind. I'll show you".

The outsider headed to the edge of the pond. There, he waited patiently for a fish to swim close enough. A few seconds ticked, when he unexpectedly snatched one out with incredible deftness. The spectators dropped their jaws in amazement. Kopa sat next to Raghu, the white cub's victory boiling in the depths of his soul. After studying Kev's position thoroughly, he came up with a prank. _Yes!_ The prince shot a mischievous glance at his best friend, who returned it instantly, as if the same thought wended through their heads. With evil smirks clung to their faces, they walked towards their victim, pretending to congratulate him. However, when he was least expecting it, they pushed him into the water with their paws. His brief _moment_ dissolved in the laughter that followed his fall.

"You didn't have to do that" exclaimed Jill.

"No" replied Kopa, laughing along with his friend and the rest, "but we did it anyway".

"Ouch!" squealed Raghu, suddenly. The prince and the white she-cub gazed into his sapphire eyes, which glittered with pain. Kev had poked his head out to the surface and had grabbed the cub's tail with his teeth. Making use of all his strength, the outsider overcame his resistance and pulled him into the pond. Afterward, he hopped out and snarled (for the first time) at the future king. Kopa backed away, but could not dodge his enemy's swift charge. Pinned, he felt the water in which the aggressor was soaked dripping down his yellowish fur.

"You're not so tough now, are you, your majesty?" asked Kev defiantly, satisfied with the results of the pouncing lessons his sister had given him.

Not much time passed before Raghu pushed him aside violently, knocking him down. Quickly, Kopa got up and placed his front limbs on top of his chest. His mouth groped for his tail while his paws kept him tightly nailed to the ground. When he finally got hold of it, a soft, low moan slipped out of Kev, who instantaneously looked up and saw the prince grinning with the white tail between his sharp teeth.

"You bit his, I'm biting yours" explained Simba's son, his words mumbled terribly as a result of the thing in his mouth distorting the sound waves.

"So you have a notion of poetic justice. I'm impressed".

"I don't know what that is".

"Of course you don't".

Annoyed, the prince clenched his teeth, compelling the outsider to grit his.

"Come on, kids" said Timon, "peace and love: that's our motto, remember?"

"I thought it was Hakuna Matata" interjected Pumba.

The meerkat exploded. "Oh could you work with me!"

Deafened by the grudge they held for each other, the two cubs ignored the babysitters.

"I'll let go", muttered Kopa, "if you repeat after me".

"Repeat what?" wondered Kev.

He started slowly. "I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE…"

The grimace of pain on the outsider's face loosened and mutated into a clenched smile that appeared to be confining a thunderous guffaw inside his mouth. Infuriated with the deprecating expression, the prince bit the tail harder.

Kev's pupils contracted and tears welled in his yellow eyes. "Okay, stop it! Stop it!"

"Come on. Say it".

"I pledge allegiance…"

"TO PRINCE KOPA…"

"to Prince Kopa…"

"AND PROMISE…"

A terrifying idea whopped the outsider just before repeating what his ears had last grasped. He shuddered at the thought of Kopa bullying him for the rest of his life. And that would be his fate if he allowed him to get his way all the time, he reasoned.

"Keep going".

"Bite me" said Kev, refusing to continue.

"Okay!" he replied cheerily.

The prince sank his teeth deeper into the tail. Perhaps, even deeper than he had intended. His amber eyes widened, just like Kev's yellow ones did. His mouth spit the furry thing out after having been invaded by the metallic taste of blood.

"I'm sorry", he apologized while staring at the wound he had inflicted on the white cub. His shrill voice quavered frantically. "I didn't mean to…"

"Shut up!" roared the outsider, gazing into Kopa with that look of his that said "back off": that look misery had taught him; those dreadful eyes grief and misfortune had showed him how to wear.

"Just shut up…" he repeated, although his firmness had crumbled down. This time, the words came out more like a petition.

In a matter of seconds, the whole group agglutinated behind him, squirming and craning forward to get a better view. He felt like a freak exhibiting himself to an eager circus crowd.

"May I turn around now?" asked Kev after a minute or so, weary of standing still while everybody else glanced at his tail with the most particular of interests.

"It looks ugly" groaned the warthog.

"It isn't serious", stated Jill, though not convincingly enough. "You should still disinfect it".

"How am I supposed to do that?" raved the brother.

"Walk it off, kid" said the meerkat, relaxed.

Upon looking into Kev's worried eyes, a crooked frown crushed the smile on Timon's face.

"Don't worry", he added, repented. "Rafiki will know what to do".

"Who's Rafiki?"

"An annoying monkey. You'll love him."

The tall, withered grasses shone under the sun as glamorously and gracefully as forsythias. However, the seconds, the minutes, and the hours ticked. The brightness of the fields faded away when their illuminator plunged into the earth in hopes of a pleasant rest. The sunless sky now boasted three almost perfectly centrifuged colors. A vaporous, purplish line, the result of mingled darkness and light, ran horizontally across it, kilometers over the horizon, separating the blue blackness above from the vermillion residues of sunlight below.

The bunch left for the den in silence, the same way they had done two weeks ago after the first clash between the prince and the outsider. They reached the cave just before nightfall. Explanations regarding the way in which Kev had gotten hurt were forced out of the cubs by the adults before the King summoned Rafiki to take care of the wound. The hearts of the young palpitated agitatedly when their parents questioned or refused to believe their versions of what had occurred. After discussing the facts, discarding the unnecessary pieces, and saving the useful ones, the lionesses solved the puzzle. It was not a matter of life and death; they just wanted to sate their curiosity.

Not long afterward, an old baboon entered the den. His nose was as red as that of a homeless freezing under the snow in a big city during winter. Shades of blue surrounded his crazy yellow eyes. His right hand held a staff that looked like the ancient ones bible characters used to carry around all the time. Kev could not believe he had not met him yet. Apparently, he was a very dear friend to the pride.

"Where is he?" he inquired, after exchanging greetings with the King.

Simba's amber eyes wandered around until they caught sight of white fur. "There."

The baboon's penetrating gaze of astonishment altered Kev's relatively serene mood. It revealed knowledge. Did he know about him… his secret? Impossible. But his mind could not help fretting before those surprised eyes, which seemed to conceal the truth so unsubtly.

Fortunately, the monkey noticed the cub's growing concern. The sullenness in his face dissipated as he approached. Standing behind him, he examined the wound pensively. He ordered Kiara, who sat next to him, to hold the outsider down. Obeying, she wrapped her mouth around Kev's scruff and pushed him gently against the ground. Her tight grasp precluded him from moving. What on earth was he going to do to him? He could not turn around to see for himself! The sound of cracks and sloshing liquid provided him with an unclear idea of what was happening, which, by the way, did not divert much from reality. Rafiki had split one of the hollow fruits dangling from the tip of his staff into two halves, disposing of the first and employing the remaining one as a receptacle in which he poured a viscous, red liquid.

A few seconds passed. The shaman put his potion down roughly. The thud provoked by the hard surface of the fruit and the stony floor touching rushed into Kev's ears, which pricked up. Then, he grabbed his tail by the undamaged area. Wow! It had not been so long since the outsider left human society and he had already forgotten how a hand felt like_. OUCH!_ Rafiki had dipped the open wound in the gooey substance. It stung so badly! Every inch of his body commanded the male cub to scoot off. However, Kiara's will proved stronger. Swallowing the pain, he rested his head on his paws.

Of all the stares that heeded the agonizing cub, Kopa's was the most guilt-ridden and pitiful. Having witnessed how they got along, one would think that under these circumstances he would gloat over Kev's pain. Surprisingly enough, that was not the case. A huge, empathic heart beat within the prince's chest, entirely void of malice.

Finally, Rafiki wound a soft, bandage-like leaf around the cub's tail and, not before saying goodbye, departed. _Whew!_ Some rest at last. Kev did not move from the place where he was lying before shutting his eyes. The weariness the day had brought upon him contributed to his drifting off quickly. _Dad! Dad! Tell us a story! Yeah! We want to hear a story!_ Oh come on! The cubs, unbelievably enough, had chosen to sit around Simba right behind him.

The joyous stories, joyfully told by the King, interested the male outsider very much, although he would have never admitted it had he been asked his opinion. Countless themes hid behind the countless anecdotes about ancestors and kings of the past that Simba's voice carried to his ears.

"The stories you're told are way too happy" complained Kev, springing to his paws, once Simba called the story session off for the night. "No wonder you're always so cheery".

"What kind of stories do _you _know?" inquired Raghu.

"I have plenty of stories".

Instantly, the excited cubs' ears rose and their eyes widened. They faced the adult lion. _Please… Can we listen_ _to them? We won't have trouble waking up tomorrow! We promise… Pleeeease? _Jill was the only one who remained silent, keeping an eye on his brother suspiciously.

"Okay", replied Simba, "but just one".

"What is it gonna be about?" asked Aazi, turning to Kev.

"My pride", he declared.

"This is a story about one our greatest kings, who lived long before Jill and I were born. But he did not have a kingdom. None of our kings ever had one. We have always been nomads, moving from one place to another, going to where the prey drove us. Under this king's rule, the pride had prospered like it had never done before. Everything was perfect. Everybody was happy. But one day, he made the blunder of his life. One mistake carried all that he loved away and destroyed him. One thing. One place…"

The cubs paid close attention. "What happened?" asked one tremulously.

"The King led the pride to a land that had enough prey to sustain its members for at least ten lifetimes. It was huge and beautiful. It had it all: water, shade, trees, and flowers. However, the King didn't know the place was cursed."

"Cursed? What was wrong with it?"

"It hid an evil secret that revealed itself every midnight, when the moon glowed palely over the savanna."

The attentive cubs gulped.

"The first three nights, the pride had a pleasant sleep. The fourth, however, something weird happened: some of the cubs went missing…"

Kev continued with his story in this fashion, recurring to suspense very often and not forgetting to include the gory details. Sometimes, when the group presumed something bad would happen, gasps of horror resounded. Just like people watching scary movies, he thought. Oh yeah! He was having his fun. _Let's see how your majesty likes the nightmares… if he gets any sleep. Ha! Ha! Ha!_

He finished his tragic masterpiece with an eloquent line worthy of applause. Fortunately, some of the cubs thought, not all of the main characters died. In fact, Kev could not kill them all. If he had, no reasonable explanation would have accounted for his being there telling the story of his ancestors. Of course, the cubs could have simply regarded the tale as the wild, creepy fantasy it was, just like Simba had. But that seemed impossible to do. After all, they were cubs; the equivalent to children.

"Okay, now it's time to sleep" announced the King, retreating to his royal spot next to his queen.

The group disintegrated. Each cub went to its mother, or surrogate mother, as was the case of the outsiders.

Jill snuggled in the gap between Kiara's body and Kovu's. She turned her head back when she realized her brother had not come. "What are you doing?"

With his claws, he drew a circle around his sister and the adults that lay to her sides. "Keeping the monsters away" he replied, loud enough for all of the cubs to hear.

"Ah! You made the whole story up! I know you wanted to scare them and, trust me, you succeeded. But isn't it enough?"

"Oh come on, sis!" he insisted cheerily, hopping into the circle and occupying his spot in the gap, "This will be so much fun!"

The night blew a mellow gust of wind into the cave. Its soft wail lulled the outsiders asleep. _Ow! Who's stepping on my wound?_ The pain startled Kev awake. Why were all the cubs up, surrounding him? Some were even sitting on top of Kovu! What if they woke him up?

"Sorry" murmured the one who had his paw on his tail, withdrawing it immediately.

"What do you want?"

"We want to sleep here too".

"What? No! You can't!"

"What if the monsters come to take us?"

"Kev", muttered the princess, opening one of her tired eyes, "what's going on?"

"Can we all sleep here with you?" asked Kopa to his sister, in a tone so irresistibly cute and innocent that she could not deny him what he wanted.

"Okay, but if one starts kicking, you're all out."

Having been allowed to stay, the cubs lay down and flaked out. Sleeping so squeezed together was not at all a new experience for them, but it was for Kev. It felt uncomfortable, to say the least. Not only did he have to endure occasional bruising kicks and echoing snores; his nose itched awfully as a result of one of the cubs' tail tuft resting on it. Since it emanated Aazi's scent, he chose not to bite it. Where was Jill? Oh no. She was the one with the loudest snores! _Funny how things work out… So much fun! Yeah. Sweet, sweet revenge._

* * *

_Chapter 6. I hope you've enjoyed it. Next chapter, the plot thickens a bit. You won't be seeing much of Timon and Pumba, though, because I find it really hard to write with them. Thank you for all your reviews; they are very much appreciated. So please continue REVIEWING (please, please, pleeease!). And again, sorry about any mistakes; feel free to advice me. _


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**

* * *

**

_The pure darkness of the room to which he was confined mingled with the clarity of the night. Moonlight peeked in through the small windows, casting some of the shadows away and revealing the presence of rotten shelves and artifacts in a tragic state of disrepair. Where was he? It looked like an abandoned warehouse. _

_He attempted to move, but something was wrong. He didn't have any legs! No fingers. No arms. Nothing. He was just a ghostly entity hovering in the cold air. Oddly enough, he could find comfort in his current state. Life had stopped weighing over his shoulders and the cruel stigmas of time had vanished along with his body. Worries could not torture him anymore. _

_His mind experienced a calmness it had never known before; he was dead and couldn't care less. The mad silence that ruled the room had a lulling effect on him. Just before it swept away his consciousness, however, it was broken._

_The tapping of footsteps against the dusty wooden floor echoed. The sound waves rippled through the air, tickling the phantom. Instantaneously, his invisible eyes drifted towards four approaching silhouettes, almost unnoticeable against the vacuum-black backdrop of the warehouse. The figures' bodies hid behind tenebrous cloaks. A strange force, like a dark aura, shielded their faces, for which their identities remained unknown. Nonetheless, the specter managed to distinguish the pale blue radiance which their eyes glowed with. _

_Each held an unlit black candle in its leather-gloved hands. The tallest one bent over and drew a seal on the floor with a piece of white chalk. The pentagram! What was going on? Settling in their corresponding points of the heretic star, leaving the fifth one vacant, they began uttering words in a language the spirit could not decipher. Something magic and attractive about their voices tempted weak flames to bud shyly from the candle wicks. Upon being illuminated by them, the room acquired a faint, flickering orange color. _

_The sinister light beaming from their blue eyes grew brighter as they recited their wicked prayer:_

"_We call upon the powers of Darkness_

_To summon the King of Bats and the Queen of Spiders_

_We beseech you, Lazarus and Haza, oh Father and Mother!_

_Overcome the barriers of Space and Time_

_Break free from the chains that stole your immortal life_

_Transcend the cinders, the grave, and the stones_

_Come to us and restore our flesh and bones!"_

_

* * *

_

The inexplicability of the Universe's function has moved mankind, throughout history, in a most intriguing search for the truth. The fear of death and the unknown is remarkably well-carved deep within man's essence. Yet, he seeks the answers to the timeless questions related to these subjects that haunt his reason-cursed being with immeasurable zeal. So desperately does he wish to sate his ever-growing curiosity, and such is the devotion he has for his hopeless cause, that his efforts would captivate the gods, whoever they might be, yielding a brief moment of weakness uncharacteristic of such almighty authorities. Unfortunately, the explanations he conjures never satisfy him properly. Thus, unable to solve the puzzle and mired in impossibility, he suffers. From the bitter sea of solid doubts and liquid explanations, though, one truth, and perhaps the most certain of all, can be retrieved; the minds of mortals will never fully understand the world's superlative complexity, for its comprehension entails a different nature: one unencumbered by limits. Only those who can successfully apprehend the concept of infinity have the capacity to unveil the elusive secrets of existence.

Such a secret is that of fate. Are the lines to one's life written by oneself? Or are they all thoughtfully included in the intricate webs destiny weaves without one's knowing it?

Whatever the answer, the fact was that the outsiders blissfully ignored such philosophical matters while they were sleeping with the rest of the cubs inside the circle Kev had drawn the night before. The adults had risen earlier than usual. Unaware that fate would weave an out-of-routine web pattern for them on this day, the white cubs kept on slumbering until Kiara rushed into the cave. The soft patter of her footsteps subsided as she came to a stop. For a couple of seconds, she stood idly a few inches from the spot where the little ones lay squeezed together. Finally, erasing the pensiveness from her face, she leaned forward and reached out for Kev's ear.

"What's wrong?" he asked complainingly.

"Come on. Wake up. It's time to check on your wound."

"But I'm too tired. Can't it wait?"

"Rafiki had told me to check on you at this hour"

Opening his eyes, he grunted something that might have been _okay_ and shouldered his way out of the protective circle. The princess gave his rump a nudge to hurry him out of the den.

Outside, the sun glowered down at the lionesses' bodies, strewn along the stony ground. Simba's daughter lifted Kev by the scruff (something he didn't quite enjoy but to which he had already gotten accustomed), headed to a nearby flat rock, and lay down. Carefully laying the cub in front of her, she stared curiously at the leafy wrapping wound around his tail.

"Did it hurt?"

"You have no idea", exclaimed the outsider. "Why is your brother such a jerk?"

"I know he can be a nuisance sometimes, but he's not bad."

Even though he strongly disagreed, he replied with a curt nod. "Whatever you say."

Not much time passed before the white cub hopped to his paws brusquely, baffled by an odd gesture from the princess.

"What are you doing?" he asked, turning his head to see his tail in her mouth.

"Lie down," she retorted soothingly. "Just trust me."

Without much of a choice, he obeyed. His brain, alert, prepared nerves and muscles for a swift escape, should anything go wrong. But no harm whatsoever came to him. In fact, and much to his surprise, what she started doing felt good to the point of forcing involuntary low purrs (cool! he had never purred before!) of pleasure out of him. He didn't notice it, but his tail waggled in the air calmly, despite its being trapped between the princess's teeth, as she gently unknotted the throbbing nerves within it. However, it ceased its motion upon inadvertently lashing her in the face.

"I'm sorry", muttered the male cub, springing to his paws in a rush. His limbs strained to overcome the princess's pull in a futile attempt to get away. She wouldn't let go! Oh… come… on! What… did… she… want? Succumbing to her strength at last, he sat down and, turning his head, gazed into her eyes with shame.

"Oh don't worry" she giggled, "that's what tails are for, no?"

"You said you were just gonna check on it."

"Okay, okay. There's no need to get…"

Suddenly, something rendered Kiara mute. Her smile crumpled into a grimace of pain as tears welled in her eyes. Her jaws shut abruptly, encaging the outsider's tail in agony.

"Ow!" he squealed, tearing away from her grasp. "What did you do that for?"

Instantly, she looked back, her fiery glare falling upon her young brother, who was holding her tail in his mouth.

"Drop it, Kopa!"

"You're such a crybaby!" he complained, obeying. "Just like Kev."

"And you're an obnoxious, little BRAT!" she raved and quickly redirected her attention to the outsider. "I am so, so sorry! Let me see."

"It's nothing" muttered Kev, pulling away.

"Let me see!" she repeated, raising her voice. Kev sighed in defeat, turned around, and left his tail on display for the princess. Slowly, trying her best not to make things worse, Kiara removed the wrapping with her mouth.

The wound was gone! The monkey's medicine had worked like a charm. And to think that, in addition to his nightmare, he had mulled grievously all night long over how it would get seriously infected. Yes. The headache. The weakness. The vomiting. Fever. Death. They all had painted vivid portraits of his last days deep in his mind. On top of it all, sleeping with a bunch of snoring cubs and asphyxiating on their furs as if they were murderous pillows and putting up with their kicks and occasionally smelling the nauseating products of their noisy stomachs' digestive processes had been altogether such a delightful experience that he couldn't put into words how much he had enjoyed it. But the hell with it all! He had nothing to worry about now. It was a Friday (at least in his mind)… and the dismissing bell had just rung!

Once Kovu arrived, the princess rose from her spot and stretched, rubbing her head caressingly against his neck to greet him. Upon witnessing the gesture of affection, Kopa let out a loud _yuck _deliberately, to which the adults answered with low giggles as they walked away.

The two lovebirds gone, Kopa approached the white cub. For the first time, Kev could not detect a single spark of menace in his gait or his countenance. What was he thinking? Maybe he still felt guilty about what he had done. Yeah. That had to be the reason he wasn't bothering him. _Nah… _he was up to something_._

"Hey," began the prince, as if nothing had ever happened between them, "wanna see something really cool?"

_What is it? A prank? An insult? Another bite?_

"Not really", answered Kev, "I'm still kinda tired."

"Please! It has to do with your story!"

_My story? I mentioned a bunch of things in my story… and none of them real._

"What is it?"

"But I don't want to tell you" he explained excitedly, "I want to show you."

Kev remained seated in silence, facing Kopa. The tremulous glint in the young prince's amber eyes had somehow numbed his tongue, which, otherwise, would have articulated a terse and devastatingly honest _Not interested_. Besides, he could not help feeling slightly curious about whatever it was that had to be shown to him so urgently.

A happy smile on the golden-furred cub's face immediately greeted the outsider's nod. Cheerily, Simba's son started looking around for his mother to get her permission to leave. While he was at it, Kev, wearing the most up-in-the-clouds of gazes, kept wondering about the surprise. Wait! Was he going alone with him? Great, he thought. They'd surely end up the same way they had done the last time or every single time they had been left alone: insulting one another and clashing physically after running out of words. No! Not if he could stop it…

The white cub scampered into the den. Sitting down in front of the circle, he tugged his sister away from her sleep. Her eyes burst open instantaneously and her body shook slightly at the sight of her brother's face so close to hers.

"Kev, let me sleep!"

"Kopa wants to show me 'something cool' and you've got to come along."

"I do? I don't think so."

"Okay", exclaimed the brother, a smirk blooming on his face, "I guess I'll just have to go alone then. With nobody looking after us, who knows what kind of fight we'll get into this time!"

"I'm up! I'm up!" yelled the sister, hopping out of her sleeping spot. _Outstanding. Reverse psychology… never fails!_

Two other cubs were awakened by she-cub's voice and joined the twins once they got up.

"Where are you going?" inquired Raghu.

"I don't know" said Jill, "Kopa says he's got something cool to show us."

"Really?" asked Aazi, "What it is?"

"We don't know yet."

The gang started off not long afterwards. Where they were headed to, only the prince knew. Indifferently, Zazu, who had been assigned the task of looking after them, led the way to the waterhole, the place he thought they wished to visit, completely clueless that Kopa was utterly busy contriving a scheme to get rid of him as they paced along.

The blazing sun floating on the liquid sky bathed the grassy surface of the savanna in its caustic radiance. The plants wilted as the rays of yellow light wrung the water and the life out of them. Kopa and Raghu strode together ahead of the rest. The vegetation's withered fingers combed their furs. The gap in between the two of them was later filled by the female outsider. Despite his curiosity, Kev maintained a relatively low speed, always staying behind the two friends and his sister. Aazi, for her part, could have joined the three, but, not wanting to leave the male white cub alone, slowed down and walked alongside him.

The blue bird watched the group's every move carefully as he glided along in the air. If he had learned anything throughout his years as the King's majordomo, it was that the words cub and innocence could not be used in an affirmative sentence. Definitely not. Apparently, as experience had taught him, a cub's level of cunning was directly proportional to his or her degree of cuteness. And all his life, he had dealt with cute little lions. Cute little devils.

Somewhat disturbed by the silence, the light-brown she-cub veered her head to the side where Kev was walking and looked into his eyes. "Kev?"

"Yes?"

"Do bats and spiders have kings too?"

Perplexed, the outsider stopped. Maybe she hadn't asked that. Maybe his mind was just screwing with him again. A mere manifestation of his growing madness. Yes! That calmed him down.

"Kev? Are you listening?"

Nope. She _had_ said it. Curse his sanity!

"Why would you ask something like that?"

"Well, last night, you were mumbling something about a king of spiders or… I dunno."

_A King of Bats and a Queen of Spiders_. Aazi noticed the frown into which her friend's face had crinkled up. His yellow eyes now bore the deep, inner sorrow they had displayed for her that starry night when she had asked him about that friend of his from his old pride. What was her name? Oh… Alice. _Alice, Kev, Jill… _that pride had a liking for the weirdest names!

"Sorry" mumbled the she-cub, lowering her head to the ground. He never talked about his family and friends to her or to anybody. This, although she didn't know why, always aroused a strange uneasiness in her stomach, her head, and, most importantly, her heart. Why couldn't he trust her? She acknowledged that they weren't the BEST friends, but still, she felt she was entitled to a little bit more of information. Why, she always answered his dumb questions! Why couldn't he answer hers?

Surprisingly enough, Kev picked up on how depressing her walk had turned rather quickly and tried to cheer her up the first way he came up with. "Hey," he muttered, nudging her side with his paw, "race ya!"

Her eyes strayed from the path her limbs were following and drilled into the outsider's with their sharp, red tinge. This couldn't be Kev, she mused. He would have never asked her to race him. Not in a million years!

Before her brain could process all the unusual information that was crashing in, the white cub accelerated away, a toothy grin spread across his face. It took her a while to realize what had happened, but when she did, she bounded after her friend as fast as a bolt of lightning. Once she caught up, instead of leaving him behind, she leapt on him and clung to his back, laughing cheerily as he grunted and lost his footing. At last, they tumbled over each other and, once the rolling stopped, the pridelander landed on top of the outsider. Unable to resist gravity, Aazi thrust her muzzle against Kev's unintentionally. Their lips clashed.

"Ewww!" moaned Kopa, who had turned just in time to witness the, as he had put it in his mind right away, _gross_ scene. "You kissed!"

Immediately flinching away from the white cub, Aazi swung round and stared at the prince. Tears of embarrassment welled up in her eyes. "It was an accident! We didn't really kiss!"

"Yes you did!"

Kopa and Raghu started chanting silly love songs around the poor cub, pushing harder and harder on her, as if their inner devils really wanted her to explode in order to quench their thirst on her tears. If the younglings had seen right through the light-brown fur that masked her face, the blood-red tint of her cheeks would have tricked them into assuming that she had been slapped severely.

Unworriedly, Kev rose to his paws. The franticness with which Aazi's lungs, heart, and mind now functioned had not seized him. He felt the way he usually did whenever he received a kiss from Alice (of course, kissing a lioness had been a totally new experience). But why were the boys making such a big deal out of it? It hadn't even been on purpose. And why did Aazi look so freaked out? What the outsider did not hint at was that his could just have been that female cub's first kiss.

Fortunately, the majordomo descended and diverted the annoying cubs' attention from Aazi right before the last specks of control she had over her tears melted away.

"We're here" he announced, rather coldly.

The waterhole! How on earth had they arrived so fast? It didn't matter, thought Simba's son. Now it was time to ditch Mr. Banana Beak!

Kev approached the still agitated friend he'd kissed accidentally and gave her shoulder an affectionate pat. Unexpectedly, she writhed upon feeling his touch and walked away, joining Raghu and Jill, who were sitting peacefully at the edge of the pond drinking water.

_What's with her? Was it something I did? I haven't…_ Suddenly, a furtive voice whispered the plan that was to be executed in order to get rid of the babysitter to his ear.

"What are you two gossiping about?" inquired Zazu, suspecting.

"What do you care?" replied the prince, withdrawing his lips from the outsider's ear.

"I know you are up to something" exclaimed the hornbill reproachfully, poking his snout with the tip of his wing.

"I'm not!" he protested, recoiling and rubbing his nose with his paw.

"Do not try to fool me", warned Zazu, "Your father used to have that same mischievous look on his face when he was a cub."

"Why couldn't Timon and Pumba come? They're much more fun than you!"

"And let you two scratch the guts out of yourselves again?"

Kev tried to hold his laughter within his mouth as well as he could. Oh but that accent was just hilarious! Finally losing control, his lips parted, allowing a silvery giggle to whoosh through and startle the majordomo.

"What's so funny?" he demanded to know.

"N-nothing" answered the white cub, pulling a fake grin.

The contrived facial expression didn't help as much as he thought it would. Before he could even realize it, the scolding had deviated from Kopa and began crashing into his eardrums. The prince observed intently how Kev's smile slowly morphed into a murderous scowl.

"Oh bugger off!" he yelled once he reached his boiling point, imitating his scolder's accent.

The future king burst out laughing, attracting the other cubs' attention, who settled around the contenders after rehydrating their bodies. Insults and threats were slung from one side to the other and mingled with the spectators' laughter, breaking the peace that ruled the grasslands.

"You will be in a world of trouble, young lion, when I inform King Simba of your insolent behavior."

The prince stepped forward after hearing this threat, as if it had been meant for him. "That's what you always do; you complain to my dad."

"Well, if you behaved better, I wouldn't have to do that, now wouldn't I?"

"I am the prince, you know. You should respect me more…"

Zazu cackled annoyingly at the cub's demand, but hushed upon taking notice of the stern glare he had shot at him.

"Don't you look at me like that," he ordered, backing away a few steps so as to avoid being pounced on, but not as far as to convey the hunter-prey fear predators are so expert at detecting. "Okay, you've had your fill; now it's time to go back."

"Go back?" inquired the yellowish cub, pricking up his black-rimmed ears and smirking malevolently. "But the fun's just begun!"

Strategically positioning himself behind the hornbill, the prince moved his paw brusquely, swatting him away in the direction of the waterhole. As his body skittered along the surface of the pond and the cubs fled, cluck-like screams echoed away.

Running as fast as they would have if their lives had been at stake, the little ones flashed into the jungle of the north and through the savanna on the other side, until their limbs ran out of energy. Yes! They had lost him! As they panted, the outsiders looked at each other with something they hadn't felt in a long time: happiness. That sensation of taking part in something; of conspiring; of adrenaline tearing through deadened veins; that sensation which palpitated agitatedly in their hearts was something they had lost but, by some inexplicable twist of fate, now retrieved.

Kev, though, lost it again upon staring at the future king's face. His gaze denoted confusion and preoccupation, and this startled the white cub.

"What's wrong?" he asked unnecessarily, for he already knew the answer to that question.

"This… uh… this…" he stammered, "I don't know this part of the savanna."

"Are you saying we're lost?"

At first, it seemed Kopa had ignored him, but after his eyes were done wandering around in search of a reference, he replied with a shy nod.

"So let me get this straight", started Kev, "You dragged us out of Pride Rock to see 'something cool' and now you don't know where we are, right?"

The prince remained silent. "Are you an idiot?" raved the male outsider. "Well, what can I say? Congratulations! You have reached a new level of stupidity!"

Kopa protested. Kev answered back. This was how it always started. It wouldn't take long for one to lunge at the other. The rest of the cubs sat idly on the sidelines, pressing their ears tightly against their heads to muffle the shouting, waiting for the inevitable.

"Why did you drag us here anyway? What was it that you wanted us to see so desperately?" was what the white cub had asked before the brownish-gold cub exploded.

"I did it because I'm sorry about yesterday!" he retorted, bursting into tears.

Instead of shutting up and feeling compassion for him, as anybody with a heart would have done, Kev pushed it harder._ Then why didn't you say 'I'm sorry'? Oh nooo! You had to bring us here!_ After soaking under a rain of reproaches, Kopa interrupted him.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out. I… I just wanted to make it up to you."

Kev mumbled an insult in response. The prince's tearstained face filled with rage as the words swept into his ears and stirred his mind even more than it already was.

Infuriated, he pressed his paws against the ground, lifting his rump. Without hesitating, the white cub streaked away. He didn't look back. Maybe Kopa wasn't chasing him… But he could hear the venomous sound of rushed steps and fur being brushed by dead grasses behind him. It was drawing nearer and nearer. At one point, he even felt him winding his breath around his tail.

_No! No! No!_ _I have to keep running._ The image of the prince biting him again flashed through his mind a thousand times, but was then replaced by a much scarier one. A stranger. A man with glowing, yellow eyes. And fangs. Huge fangs. Biting him. Killing him. Turning him…

Suddenly, the nearing sound died with a grunt from his pursuer. No sooner did he realize that the prince had been leapt on and pinned by a grayish, male lion cub, than another male with a light-brown coat pounced on him. Raghu, Aazi, and Jill, who had strained their muscles to keep up, witnessed the scene, petrified and overwhelmed by the shock.

And as the prince and the outsider lay nailed to the ground by complete strangers of their same age, fate, coldly but determinedly, weaved on.

* * *

Sorry for taking so long to post this chapter. I'm afraid, too, that it will be impossible for me to post chapter 8 before December. I don't know why, but I have the feeling I screwed up massively with the tenses this time (they're so hard!... and prepositions too). Anyways, keep reviewing (pleeeeease! I love your reviews!). And again, sorry about any mistakes. I'll try to get a beta reader for the next chapters, I just have to find out how.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

Strange pattern, the one destiny had woven this time. Whether the purpose behind each knot was good or evil, none of the cubs could tell at the moment. It all had happened too fast. Sometimes, destiny would bless one with wealth and happiness. Others, she would just throw one to the wolves. It was rather easy, though, to deduce what she had opted for now.

A couple of seconds ticked, but it seemed the world had stopped spinning. Jill, who recovered from the shock more rapidly than the rest, was the first to move. Crouching, she prepared to pounce on the cub which had attacked her brother, and would have proceeded, if it hadn't been for a harsh _stop!_ that echoed harshly from not far away. Just as mysteriously as the two unknown younglings had done, a tan she-cub sprang out of nowhere, stepping in Jill's way, baring her teeth, and puffing out her chest in the cutest display of courage.

Her diamond eyes studied the female outsider threateningly. Resuming her attack position, Jill got ready to strike, but stopped once again as the adversary's menacing scowl loosened into a weird facial expression which depicted curiosity.

"What's with your fur?" she inquired, in a rather supercilious tone.

Baffled, Jill stood still. The look of confusion on her face was so expressive and funny the stranger facing her giggled softly despite the circumstances. Behind her, petrified, Aazi and Raghu hadn't snapped out of their bewilderment yet. For their part, the two males behind the unknown she-cub lay still as well, but to keep their victims from fleeing rather than in fear.

"Who are _you_?" Jill countered, blowing away the weak smile the blue-eyed lioness had pulled and leaving not the tinniest trace she had ever bore it.

"That's not the way to address your future queen" she exclaimed, lifting her head and closing her eyes haughtily. "I, so you know, am princess Nitara, daughter of King Irushimpa, ruler of the Kuzimo Kingdom".

Jill detected in her voice the same arrogance she had discerned in Simba's son's the first time she had met him: the arrogance of royalty. A weird and unfounded animosity towards the princess expanded within her, like a stomach-ache threatening to make one throw up. _So this is how Kev feels around Kopa._

"What makes you think you'll be my queen?" she asked defiantly.

"Oh, I will be," she retorted proudly, "when my daddy conquers Pride Rock and lets me rule."

Jill snickered. "And are you planning to deal with the pressures of ruling a whole kingdom alone?"

"Nooo!" she said, almost singing whiningly, clueless that the white cub was just making fun of her, "I'll have a mate by the time I become queen".

"I wonder who the lucky king will be!" she teased and, once again, the princess didn't pick up on it.

"Duh! The prince of Pride Rock, of course."

_The prince of Pride Rock? Him? _The smirk on Jill's face collapsed in a new shock, one which would prove harder to break free from than the other that had struck her when the earth had unexpectedly spit these strangers out to the surface before her eyes. Reflex responses found their way out through her mouth, as her brain decoded the sentence and the astonishingly indifferent tone in which it had been uttered. Nitara tilted her head at the garbled words articulated by Jill's knotted tongue. The constipated voice weakened and died after a while. An airy silence finished off the surviving echoes that hovered in the wind. It did not last long, though, as it was flicked away by a shrill and deeply concerned _what?_ which tore through the princess' eardrums from behind. Bolting her head upright, perking her ears, and swinging round, she focused on the yellowish ball of fur squished under the grayish one, which had lifted its head up and stabbed its widened amber eyes into hers.

_It's my chance_, thought Jill. Jumping back, she took impulse and leapt forward. She had done everything right. However, she wasn't expecting Nitara to jerk her eyes back towards her before the impact and execute a swift counterattack. The world turned upside down and, in the blink of an eye, she ended up in the position she had intended for the enemy.

"Let me go!" she demanded as she struggled to escape, the princess's shadow embracing her.

"Quit squirming! You can't break free!"

Not long after Jill gave up on her efforts, a silvery cry swam its way into Nitara's ears. "We're sorry! It's just that we're lost and don't know what to do!"

Lifting her head, she looked into Aazi's eyes, which had spilled the tears that had been prickling them since the accidental kiss.

"Lost? You're way past the borderline! How come you didn't realize it?"

"We were running away from Zazu," she sobbed, "we didn't mean to get into your lands!"

"Who's Zazu?"

"The King's majordomo."

The princess lowered her snide gaze, spitting out an equally snide snort. Getting off of Jill, she commanded the two cubs which had Kopa and Kev pinned to do the same, addressing the grayish one as Ekevu and the light-brown one as Bakari.

"Why are you letting us go?" asked Jill suspiciously, jumping to her paws.

"You have a babysitter; you're just a bunch of crying, little babies."

"He's not our babysitter!" interjected Kopa, still lying on the grass, now free of Ekevu's weight, in an effort to redeem her opinion of the group. "He's just the majordomo…"

The two strangers approached their princess cheerfully, leaving their victims behind them. "That was fun!" stated Ekevu joyfully.

"But I'm tired of playing 'the princess' guardians'!" complained Bakari, huffing and puffing, a gesture to which the princess answered with an offended glare. "What can we do now?" he inquired wearily, focusing on the grayish cub whilst avoiding the angry blue eyes.

"I dunno," slurred the smoke-furred cub, drunk from all the fun he'd had (although his victim hadn't enjoyed the game as much).

They had completely forgotten the rough circumstances under which their meeting with the Pridelanders had taken place. More importantly, they had forgotten that _they_ were still in their turf, desperate and helpless.

After getting up, Kopa and Kev paced with rushed steps toward the spot where their friends were seated, cautiously shifting around the strangers murmuring immovably in their way, and joined them, drawing an irregular circle with a deformed, furry rim on the grassy ground. They debated for over half an hour about the right thing to do. _Funny… _The right thing to do, in the first place, would have been to stay with Zazu, not run off like they had done. Kev, in an annoying _I-told-you-so_ manner, made that point clear repeatedly throughout the agitated, wildly disorganized conversation.

The Kuzimo natives had finally decided on playing _Tag_ and started sprinting after each other in a mad fashion, screaming in stupid joy. _Tag! You're it! Tag! Tag!_ The stray cubs would not have minded about the noise, had their situation been another. They would have loved to be a part of it. But now it only made it harder for them to focus.

In spite of the disturbances, many ideas were brought up and neatened into elaborate plans when they proved good enough. Nevertheless, the male outsider always ended up rejecting them disrespectfully, although for well-founded reasons.

So hardly were they straining to sort things out, that they didn't notice the noise behind them ceased after a while. In fact, their perked ears were so busy listening carefully to all the possible solutions that they ignored the faint sound of mischievous giggles and approaching furtive steps which had replaced it. Just when hope was running dry and tears were finding their way out of the eyes of the weaker cubs (Aazi, specifically, who had already shed tears that day), the princess crept up on Kopa and jumped into view. "Boo!"

"GAH!" he yelled. Nitara rolled on the ground laughing as the prince of Pride Rock sprang violently off it. The grass beneath her, flattened by her body, rustled in even greater agony when Ekevu and Bakari joined her. The racket polluted the air and panged Kopa's ears.

"What's your problem?" he asked, facing the strangers after recomposing himself, fixing his amber eyes on the one that had made his golden fur stand on end.

"Aw! Are you going to cry? Should I call your babysitter?"

Kopa growled. "Shut up! He's not my babysitter!"

His demand only incited more laughter. He had never been so humiliated in his young life. Usually, everybody agreed with him. He would tease anybody and not one word would be spoken against him. Nobody besides Kev had ever dared to defy him. Naturally, he didn't know the proper way to react now. The rage inside spurred him to jump on the princess and bite her, but reason told him not to, not because it was a morally incorrect thing to do, but because it was obvious that her stupid minions would stop him.

"Shut up…" he repeated, his voice faltering. This reminded him of the day he had bitten Kev's tail. A strange guilt pervaded his thoughts, pushing the mocking and the outside world as a whole from his head. _He_ had said the same thing in the same sad tone, he recalled.

Not much time passed before he remembered, in his fast review of the latest events, how bad Kev had treated him earlier. The anger which had drawn him after the white cub in a crazy chase overshadowed the guilt. This time, though, he swallowed it whole, restraining himself from swinging at Nitara, the first outlet at sight. Veering his head toward the male outsider, he realized it wasn't her he was mad at.

"You know, I might help you" muttered the princess, ridding the air of the laughter with a suspiciously sweet voice. "But first, you have to apologize".

"Apologize? For what?"

"For telling me to shut up!"

Immediately, Kopa looked back, hoping his friends would have something to say. But silence prevailed. Jill was the only one to give him a sign, motioning to him to do as the princess demanded with her yellow eyes. Gulping in defeat, he dawdled his way to the strangers, complaining in his thoughts. This was so _not_ fair. He had nothing to apologize for!

"I'm sorry," he grunted, gritting his teeth.

"Now, that's better," she exclaimed, smiling and lifting her head victoriously.

"So what are you gonna do?" inquired Kopa submissively.

"Well it's getting late," she explained, "I have to go home."

"What? You said you'd help us!"

"Nooo," sang Nitara, a smirk spreading across her face. "I said I _might_ help you".

The glint of hope and embarrassment and all jumbled emotions in the prince's eyes burned out helplessly. Turning around, he walked away with his head sadly lowered to the ground. He only lifted it to look up to the sky in search of advice from the kings of the past, like his father had told him to do whenever he felt lost and alone. But there were no stars. All he could see were a million shards of darkened clouds floating by aimlessly, throttling the sunshine. Rivulets of afternoon light trickled through in a desperate attempt to escape the incipient darkness, dimly illuminating the rims of the growing grayish masses which portended the day's end.

The strangers had already started for their den, but the Pridelanders were too busy fretting to pick up on it. The night was approaching and they would have to spend it in the savannah, far from the safety of Pride Rock. This thought settled in their minds with difficulty. At first, they refused to believe there was nothing left to do, but eventually they accepted it.

_It would be better to sleep and save some energy for tomorrow_, thought Kopa. Trying to go back home in the middle of the night would surely get them killed. Who knew what kind of dangers they could encounter? Leopards, hyenas, other lions. Perhaps, even scarier predators. Yes, he mused. This was definitely the right choice.

The prince's reasoning managed to ease the other cubs' worried minds, but not completely. It had gotten really hard to see a bright side or gleam of hope in their current situation with the darkness growing thicker around them. Just as they were settling down to sleep, a shrill voice thundered, pounding into their ears and breaking through the silent twilight. It had fallen from the heavens. The younglings' eyes followed the sound anxiously until they stumbled on Nitara's silhouette, still in the distance.

"Get your lazy butts up! It's running late!" she shouted, beckoning them over with a motion of her paw.

"What is she talking about?" whispered Kopa to himself. "What?"

"Are you coming or not?"

They didn't know what would happen, but a part of them within the darkest dregs of their hearts told them to just go wherever she took them. It was a part that had been asleep since they had opened their eyes and breathed the air of the world for the first time. A part that had wakened abruptly at the startling ringing of peril.

The stray cubs sprinted towards their saviour, who started after Ekevu and Bakari before they could catch up. The quiet walk hastened as daylight died. The grasses and bushes of the savannah lost their harmless appearance, turning into rustling monsters swaying in the wind. Not long after the first stars lit up the sky, insects began singing their cold lullaby, accompanied by the mournful cries of agonizing night dwellers. It seemed altogether like the background music played in a horror movie right before the fool who strays from the path gets brutally murdered by a masked maniac with a whirring chainsaw. The silence of the Kuzimo added even more mystery to the whole creepy play.

By the time they reached the majestic fortress of trees the princess referred to as 'home', the night had erased all evidence that the sun had been up that day. The kings of the past kept a watchful bright eye over their kin from their ethereal resting places, guiding them through the dark. Once they entered the jungle, though, they could provide no further aid.

The inside looked… no… it didn't. The little ones could see nothing. It was a vacuum, except for the trees they occasionally stumbled across. Somewhat frightened and tightly plastered together, they carried on forward, Nitara leading the way through the dense blackness. They could hear the windy motion of other animals (and God, they hoped they didn't crave for young lion meat) drawing closer. Suddenly, everything stopped. Even the suspenseful melody of nature. Tender beams of moonlight punctured through the thick vegetation at the end of the path, and a small opening harbored all the light the jungle lacked. The gates of heaven. Or, perhaps, the gates of hell. It was up to fate to decide that, and up to now, she had been nothing but a dear to the Pridelanders.

They squeezed their way through the narrow exit, the white lights of the night shining upon their dirty, sweaty pelts. The clearing in which they emerged was huge and beautiful and had it all. Surrounded by trees, it proved a fine shelter. Rocks and bushes abounded. The grass was not rough and dry like the one they had been walking on all day long. Not so far from where they stood, a formidable water hole shimmered under the moon, as if something with a light of its own were buried beneath its still, transparent surface.

Definitely, it would have been the perfect place to spend the night but, naturally, something just _had_ to go wrong. As they followed the natives in a subdued manner, the lost cubs caught gazillions of gloomy stares surrounding them, glowing murderously, in their sight. They listened fearfully to the tapping of paws creeping cautiously toward them. Sporadic growls of hunger and hate stiffened their stomachs and lungs and smothered their hearts.

A loud roar stormed into Kev's ears from behind. He turned around, knowing that it could only come from _something_ indeed monstrous. His yellow eyes met the cold, hazel ones of a huge (and he actually thought _huuuge!_), brown-furred lion with a neat auburn mane. The white cub didn't cringe or scoot off to seek protection behind his sister. This, actually, came out as quite a surprise, even to him; he would usually get nervous even around cubs younger than him. He wasn't trying to be brave or anything, though; fear had simply knocked his nervous system unconscious with a tough right fist.

The eyes of the beast contracted down on him. At this point, the male outsider felt his bladder explode like a bomb, spraying disgusting urine all over his entrails. Then it bared its teeth and growled menacingly. A drop or two of yellow liquid splattered on the ground. Fortunately, the princess put herself between them just in time to prevent more from slipping out.

"Where have you been?" asked the imposing adult figure, in an intimidating guttural tone.

"Daddy, we were playing near the borderline and we…"

"The borderline?" he chimed in harshly, compelling the she-cub's ears to fall back and her head to droop. "Have I not warned you repeatedly not to play there? I should put a babysitter in charge of you. You are clearly too young and stupid to not wander off on your own…"

"No, Daddy! I promise…"

"Silence! Zarina, show yourself!"

The younglings swung their heads to all sides, realizing a bunch of lionesses had furtively formed a circle around them. One with tan fur and blue eyes like Nitara's stepped forward.

"Yes, my King?" she inquired shyly.

"Get _your_ daughter out of my sight!" He turned to the rest. "Leave us."

The circle dissipated. Zarina picked her daughter up by the scruff with motherly gentleness. Two other lionesses approached to do the same with Bakari and Ekevu and, joining their queen, disappeared into the night.

Only the big lion was at sight now. Nevertheless, the younglings could still distinguish the tenebrous glimmer of the lionesses' hungry eyes burning furiously in the shadows.

"Who are you?" growled the King, shattering the silence with his hoarse voice.

His gaze pierced straight through the male white cub's eyes, which glinted in fear. The adult had unsheathed his sharp claws, and though he hadn't lifted a paw, Kev knew he would.

_I'm going to die_ was the first idea that loomed in his numb mind. It grew stronger when the male roared out the question a second time. He couldn't hold the tears within him anymore. As one trickled down his right cheek, he heard the prince's voice:

"My name is Kopa," he muttered, his shrill voice subdued. He introduced the rest of the group timidly. "We're from Pride Rock."

"So you must be Simba's son," he gasped, displaying a malevolent, somehow cold excitement. "You do look quite like _he_ did when he was your age."

This must've been the thousandth time Kopa heard those words come out of an adult's mouth. He was used to having his mother's girlfriends highlighting his uncanny resemblance to his father whenever they ran into him. They would rub their necks against his and speak his name or "_who's a cute little ball of fur?"_ with pouty lips. Eshe always complimented him the most. Once the furry walls of his suffocating prison of love would open up, he would go to Raghu, who would laugh to tears to his face.

"Aunt Eshe does that to you too!" Kopa would say, in an effort to hush him.

"But she never calls me a '_cute little ball of fur',"_ his friend would reply, bursting into more laughter.

Despite Raghu's teasing, he really liked the excessive attention at first. Eventually, it ended up wearing him out, or _wearing out his name_, as he had put it. Tonight, though, he didn't mind at all, not only because he depended on the King's _hospitality_ desperately, but also because of the tone in which _he _had spoken. It was very unusual. One his ears were not familiar with. One he considered emotionless. _Creepy._

"I will let you spend the night here," he murmured coldly, sending shivers down the Pridelanders' spines, "on one condition…"

The younglings' hearts halted their fast, adrenaline-induced contractions abruptly at the windy sound of those three scratching words. The lion grinned inwardly upon witnessing the fear in his guests' eyes blazing palely like a dying star.

"Everything has a price," he stated gloomily, veering his head toward the white cubs.

"We don't have anything!" cried the prince. "You can talk to my dad tomorrow and I'm sure he'll pay you with…"

"But you _can _pay me," he proceeded, his voice _shimmering_ with an ominous glint. "And my price is that furry _white boy's_ flesh."

Kopa staggered back and almost lost his footing. His eyes, as well as the others', widened in shock. As the male approached him calmly, Kev could not help but leap back and shrink behind his sister. Not even _she_ could get him out of this one, he thought hopelessly. The King sat gently on the soft grass and raised his paw high in the air, his deadly claws gleaming with reflected moonlight like the blade of the guillotine. Bound to the ground by unbreakable chains of bewilderment and disbelief, Raghu and Aazi stood still behind the beast. Wild eyes beamed with morbid anxiety around them.

"Wait!" bawled the prince, jumping and obstructing the lion's path. "You can't kill him!"

"Step aside, prince!" he ordered. "If you don't, you shall share his fate."

"You can't kill him!" he said once again, his brain burning within his skull, contriving an excuse at the speed of light. "He… he's… he's my sister's son!"

The lion put his paw down and eyed the prince suspiciously. "You're lying. Kiara doesn't have any cubs."

"But she does!" he insisted. "Two: Kev and Jill. And you can't do anything to Kev; he's part of the royal family."

He paused and let the idea swim in the King's head for a while. "You don't want a war between our kingdoms, do you?" he added with shy defiance. The solemn air of a true king flowed in that cubbish voice.

The adult grinned. "If they're Kiara's cubs, how come they're white? She's married to Kovu, who's not a white lion."

The question caught Kopa off-guard. He hadn't taken the fur color and the whole inheritance stuff, as he called it, into account. Once again, he strained his brain to come up with something, but not one plausible explanation enlightened him. "It's a… a…"

"Genetic disorder," whispered Jill helpfully.

"Yes! That!" hollered the golden cub as a wan grin spread across his face, not knowing (and certainly not caring about) what _that_ was.

The lion looked away, as though he had decided to take some time to process the recent information his ears had picked up. He then squinted down at the three cubs, hesitant.

"Very well," he exclaimed, "I'll allow you to stay for the night, but you shan't sleep with the rest of the pride; you will not move from here."

"And Prince," he added, just before joining his mate and his daughter, "keep an eye on your nephew… and your niece."

The words _nephew _and _niece_ rippled violently into his ears. To see himself as an uncle made him shudder. But the worst part by far had been the threat: the _keep an eye_ warning. He'd have to watch over the white cubs tonight, he told himself, no matter how much anger he felt towards Kev for the afternoon incident. Before lying down to sleep, like the rest had already done, he shot a final glance at the night sky. His ancestors were floating there, burning bright with pride for him. Now he couldn't see the magnitude of what he had achieved, but he would in a near future.

His eyes closed and let go of the images of this hard day. Wandering in his memories, he suddenly remembered the mating issue Jill and Nitara had brought up earlier. He decided he wasn't gonna marry some stranger, and that he wouldn't let anybody push or persuade him. The Kuzimo princess was cute-looking and all, but he had witnessed what she was truly made of. And he could live quite happily without a piece of that. Besides, he didn't want to end up like his sister and Kovu: making out shamelessly in every spot of the den. _Gross!_

Just when sleep was claiming him, he felt something warm and wet brush his cheek. His lids split open and his amber orbs looked up. Jill had just licked him! He remained where he lay, sleepy and speechless. His mind was too exhausted to figure out the _why_, but it had definitely happened.

"Thank you," she whispered sweetly, smiling, and bounded off to sleep next to her brother, who had zonked out.

Wow! Something… something was _wrong_. A strange feeling bubbled within him, leading to a series of both physical and emotional manifestations. His tummy tickled with butterflies. A warm hand squeezed his heart. It felt strangely painful, but he was okay with it. He had never experienced anything like it before; he… he felt he could stick up for his sworn enemy a thousand times just to be rewarded with a thousand more of those blood-boiling kisses and heart-wrenching smiles. His amber irises started to glisten with tears, but his lids shielded them as the night shadows descended and whisked him away from reality.

* * *

The night wore on. A deadly silence of grief had fallen over Pride Rock. Some of the lionesses lay outside their rocky home, gazing palely at the mad sprawl of the stars along the sky surface. Their shimmering eyes appeared to be waiting for something; they bore eagerness and hope, and yet, they had been scarred by a set of powerful claws; the one that carves deep gashes in your heart when you lose someone you love forever. The pain of the bereaved. That was what those grieving eyes were shining with.

Zazu had brought the bad news before the last traces of the sun evanesced. First, he had searched for the cubs carefully around their usual _fun havens_. He thought they would be merely playing 'tag' or any other cubby games of theirs somewhere not too far away and that in warning the pride before looking for himself he would only arouse unnecessary preoccupations.

But they _did_ go far away and got lost.

Three parties had been sent to rescue the missing cubs, two of which were now returning. Simba's group joined Kovu's halfway from the monolithic structure and, together, they hurried to it, hoping the third party, led by Vitani, had already found the little ones.

Their empty-mouthed arrival decimated hope. Tears streamed down the eyes of two of the four unfortunate mothers. They prickled Kiara's too, but she could restrain them a while longer. She had that much control. Their children could be shivering to death in a swamp, struggling through a thicket of thorny bushes, or running away from hungry predators. Maybe they had already been devoured by them. Little did the worried lionesses know that the five cubs had found a place where to rest for the night.

"I'm very worried," whispered the princess to her mate, sinking her face in his black mane. "I hope the third party finds them."

"I'm sure they will," he replied reassuringly.

Nala, as queen, couldn't allow herself to cry. She had to remain strong. She felt it her duty to support the inconsolable, weeping lionesses.

"They're all alone!" cried Aazi's mother. "What if they can't make it?"

"Don't say that!" retorted Nala severely, although she gave her a sympathetic nuzzle upon looking at her tearstained face. "I'm sorry, Uzima… Everything's gonna work out fine, okay? They will be home soon."

"Nala's right," muttered Eshe. Despite the tears that had cut through the fur in her cheeks, her firm voice conveyed confidence. "They will find them."

Simba, sitting on the edge of Pride Rock, kept his eyes directed to the horizon, where the sun always rose magnificently and warmed the kingdom. Kovu sat on his haunches down beside him not long afterwards.

"I didn't want to mention this in front of the others," murmured the green-eyed lion gloomily, "but I think they've trespassed into the Kuzimo kingdom."

"So do I," sighed the King, much to Kovu's surprise. "I'm afraid Irushimpa might want to hurt them."

"He's hostile, but he knows he can't afford to wage a war against us; our pride has grown bigger since… well, you know… Zira."

He couldn't bring himself to say Mom. Memories of the past, intangible images and sounds, rose from the grave in his heart where they had lain buried for some time now. His mother had fed him nothing but bitter lies. Had implanted and nourished Scar's darkness in his soul. Had taught him how to be a ruthless killer. But Kiara had saved him with her love and Zira's venom had drowned along with her. He smiled when he remembered the first time he'd met Kiara. His glowing green eyes lost themselves in the scene where they escaped the crocodiles. It had been the first time a girl told him he was brave. The first time anybody did.

"What's going through your mind?" asked Simba, noticing his son-in-law had drifted off.

"No… it's nothing," he gasped, the smile still on his face.

Another hour passed and the remaining group hadn't returned yet. Simba was about to send a new party after Vitani's, when a shrill, mandrill-like squeak tore through the cool breeze. The King looked down and saw Rafiki waving at him desperately in the distance.

"What's wrong?" shouted Simba, seeing as the baboon wouldn't come any closer.

"Come with me, there's something you need to see!"

The red-maned lion glanced back at his mate, who cued him to follow the shaman, and then turned to Kovu. "You're in charge while I'm gone."

He nodded absently as he watched the King take off. Kiara headed to his side and rubbed her neck against his. She had lost control over her tears. Before returning to the rest of the lionesses behind them, they admired the sky's vaporous black skin, inlaid with billions of glittering diamonds, one last time. They prepared to enter the cave, when a strange scent polluted their senses. Nala sniffed the air, tracking the odor's origin.

"Did you smell that too?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Kovu with a curt nod. "A trespasser."

The lionesses' eyes flashed within their yellow walls in a mad fashion, searching for the threat, until they crashed into a silhouette frozen in one of the corners moonlight could not reach. The silhouette's bearer stepped into view after realizing the Pridelanders had become aware of her presence. It was a young lioness with smoke-gray fur and sharp, emerald eyes. Kovu leapt forward violently, positioning himself aggressively in front of her and growling fiercely.

"You know the penalty for trespassing!" he roared, getting ready to attack.

"I am merely a messenger," she explained coldly, "and I'm not the only one who broke the rules today, Kovu."

Nala chipped in. "What are you talking about?"

"Five of your cubs have crossed into Kuzimo territory," she stated, facing the queen of Pride Rock. "King Irushimpa has allowed them to stay for the night and sent me to inform you that they will be returned to you tomorrow at noon, at the borderline."

This time, tears of relief ran down the eyes of all the mothers. Uzima nestled her head on Nala's shoulder and sobbed.

"It's okay," muttered the tan lioness, her own cheeks wet with salty trickles. "I told you everything would work out fine."

"King Irushimpa doesn't want this to be repeated," exclaimed the Kuzimo messenger. Her job done, she turned around and slunk down the slope that led to the savannah until she was out of sight.

A somehow uneasy peace took possession of the den and hovered in the thoughts and dreams that struck the pride. Vitani and her party returned pretty much right after the messenger's departure. Their search, naturally, had been fruitless, but their stares of disappointment lit up with joy when they heard the good news. Simba, on the other hand, arrived long after the pride had fallen asleep and expressed a notoriously lower level of happiness. Nala had grinned as she kissed and nuzzled him, attempting to wring more cheeriness out him. However, his smile wasn't as wide and real as hers and his tail didn't twitch the same way hers did. She could tell something besides the missing cubs' issue troubled those honey eyes.

* * *

_"Darkness is a funny substance." That was Kev's first waking thought. A bunch of lights were flickering and constantly changing color around him. Although dizzy, he could perceive a thousand waving arms and hear chanting screams. Occasionally, people jabbed him in the ribs or the back with their elbows as they jostled their way through the throng. Was he at another party? He couldn't be; he hadn't planned anything for tonight._

_Once his senses adapted completely to the environment, a loud, hoarse voice silenced the other chants. Kev spun round and glanced at a man with a mic standing in the center of a slightly elevated stage which lay just a few meters from where he stood. Four men were with him, scattered in the platform. A guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboard player. A concert? He hadn't bought any tickets! What was he doing here? _

_"Hey!" the man with the mic yelled, "how you doing, people!"_

_The crowd roared in response._

_"I bet you all know this one, so sing along!"_

_The guitarist slammed on his guitar, shifting the position of his fingers every two seconds. Definitely metal, thought Kev. Then it stopped. The keyboards played a beautifully dark melody. Finally, the guitar started again and drums and bass kicked in. The vocalist pressed his lips to the mic and Kev listened absently to the weak, sad sigh that escaped the huge speakers' spongy holes. _

_"Hiding underneath the veil of broken dreams, we find her weeping. On her once white wings she will be carrying the weight of our deeds. And she bleeds for love forever gooone."_

_Kev paid no heed to the first chorus; he was too busy delving into his memories, straining to remember what had happened and how he had wound up here. All they could offer was darkness. A funny darkness. And echoes. Sobs. Jill's, more specifically._

_He lowered his head to check himself. Why was he wearing a suit? The blackest suit he'd ever seen, he reckoned. All the people surrounding him wore black as well, but a more leathery one. They bore chains and piercings and scary tattoos. He needed to leave, he told himself, weaving his way out._

_"Finding souls to feed the night-side of Eden, we see her struggling for her love's last breath and walk off… Drunk on shadows and lost in a lie. Killing ourselves a kiss at a time. Devils dance while angels smi-ay-ay-le. Drunk on shadows and lost in lie…"_

_He kept moving until a girl placed her hand on his chest and stopped him. "Goth Chick" popped in his mind._

_"Hey, sweetheart," she slurred, "love your blue eyes!"_

_Kev noticed hers were green but almost fully hidden behind her dilated raven-black pupils. Just great, a high goth chick! He didn't want to waste time with her. The devil on his left shoulder, though, coaxed him to stay a while longer, hissing poison into his ear._

_"She's blinded by the fear of life and death and everything in between. We smile when she cries a river of tears, a mirror where we see nothing but a reflection of _heaven so far awaaay_!"_

_The girl leaned forward and kissed him. The cold metal surface of her piercing stole the little heat his lips had. Unexpectedly, an immense hunger struck him. His stomach wasn't rumbling in pain, but somehow he could hear the growling and feel the pangs. Goth Chick brought her neck closer to his face so that he would smell her sweet perfume. And he did smell something. Her warmth._

_"So aliiive… Drunk on shadows… So aliiive… Drunk on shadows… So aliiiiiiiiiiiiive… Drunk on shadows… So alive…"_

_Kev remembered it all in a flash as the last chorus resounded. Alyra's bite. The funeral. The coffin. Jill's bitter weeping. There was nothing he could do now. He gave in and kissed Goth Chick gently a couple of times. Her moans only whetted his appetite. He decided to shift the kissing to a much more delicious area of her body. His pale lips caressed the warm neck of his first human meal._

_"I'm drunk on shadooooows."_

_

* * *

_

**I do not own the song "Drunk On Shadows"; it is HIM's (great song, by the way, if you like metal and ever want to check it out**). That said, special thanks to my new beta reader, Arbarano. Thank you very, very, very, very much! SO MUCH! Also, thanks to all the ones who have reviewed my story up to now: Soildier, Grey Dog, Iroecoo leechen, RichardTerminator, all of you give me the motivation to keep going.

So now that I'm done with school forever, my English might decay a little, but I'll try really hard so that it doesn't happen. I have about 2 months of vacation now, before going to college. I'm thinking of studying medicine, which will consume a lot of my free time, so I won't be posting too regularily afterwards. I won't let you down, though. I love writing and I'd never give it up. Additionally, I'll try to get started on the first chapters of my new story, of which you can find a bit of information in my profile. This doesn't mean that I'm finishing with Vampire Heart; this story is far from over. Keep reading. Keep reviewing (pleeease?).


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

The image of himself draining Goth Chick to death startled Kev awake. _Everything's fine_, he panted thrice, his yellow eyes scanning the surroundings thoroughly. The dark still ruled the skies and stars twinkled brightly in its midst. The rest of the cubs slumbered near him. He could feel Aazi's fur warming his side. Without his noticing, she had cuddled up to him earlier that night and dug her muzzle into his fur, ruffling it up a little bit. He now realized how much her long exhalations heated his skin.

Her soft fur and profound breaths provided certain comfort, but proved insufficient to divert his thoughts from the dream. His own deadly fangs and sharp, lifeless eyes terrified him and the sight of all the blood gave him goosebumps. He wanted to believe there was nothing more to it than a vivid imagination, but he knew he didn't have that; he was too left-brained to elaborate such images relying solely on ideas of his own. There _had_ to be an outside stimulus, a speck of reality.

_What if it did happen? What if I did become one of them?_

He couldn't deny that all his dreams up to now had been revelations of hidden memories. Memories that his mind, for some obscure reason, had concealed somewhere deep in his unconscious. Memories of pain, grief, and misery. Memories better left forgotten.

Kev yawned and shut his eyes to drift off once again. He was still very tired. The adrenaline coursing though his bloodstream had eclipsed the weariness of his muscles throughout the entire day. Just before he had lain down to sleep, it had worn out and the weakness had taken over spontaneously, weighing on him like an anvil.

_Nothing but a dream. A very stupid dream._ The words reverberated within the confines of his head in a way that freaked him out. While his body begged earnestly for more rest, something in his mind forced him to remain conscious. He was afraid to plunge back into the world where he lived only at night and fed upon the living. Afraid to stay long enough and find out that it all had been plain real, he counted sheep to help the sandman with his job, although unable to push his worries aside. One sheep. Fangs. Two sheep. Fangs. Three sheep… until, unexpectedly, a stinging impulse displaced everything else. He had to pee! And bad! Real bad!

The white cub sprang to his paws brusquely, brushing Aazi's face harshly with his fur. In response, she squirmed away, then nestled her head between her paws and uttered barely more than a silent moan of discomfort.

_Phew!_ He hadn't knocked her from her sleep. Now, he needed to search for a safe place where to empty his overflowing bladder; marking his turf in unknown lands such as these could cost him his life. He mulled over it fast, rushed by the urge, and finally decided that the water hole would be just the perfect spot. After all, water blended with water. Nobody could reproach him for doing it there; he would be merely filling it a bit more for the wildlife. _Just doin' community service_, he thought, chuckling inwardly.

Once he reached his destination, he looked into the sparkling water which lay still before him. It appeared so clean that he actually felt sorry about contaminating it. _Well_, he mused, _when you gotta go, you gotta go._

Turning around, he thrust his rear backwards over the edge. He followed every single step Jill had taught him on the same day Kiara had given him his first bath. Every time he wanted to _go_, he was forced to remember the embarrassing conversation he'd held with her regarding that particular matter. He couldn't recall which had felt more demeaning: having his sister, a female, showing him the correct position, or having her watching him adopt it. And she had actually stayed to make sure he did it right! Not even the whole talk summed up with the many other embarrassing situations he'd endured in the Pridelands could compete with that brief moment of completely losing his dignity.

His tail flailed about, the brown tuft disquieting the surface with occasional violent strokes. His face crinkled up as the pressure intensified. _A refreshing juice of toxins for the fishies,_ he told himself, and giggled lightly. As soon as he started laughing, his ears perked at the pleasant sound of water clashing with water. His tail ceased its lively motion, his face and muscles relaxed, his eyes closed partially, and his mouth heaved a deep sigh of relief. He would have reveled in that monotonous melody forever, hadn't Aazi's voice echoed faintly from far away.

"Ew!"

As he was startled into a firm stance, the remaining urine splattered onto the fur in his legs. Some even messed up his lower belly.

"Oh, shoot!" he croaked, checking himself. He prowled in the direction where the moan had come from. He wanted to explain, although he didn't quite know how. _Aazi, I was just peeing, what's the big deal? Aazi, I had a lot of water earlier and…_ But she was nowhere to be seen.

He returned to the water hole, convinced that his mind had simply fooled him. He stooped to drink, when he remembered what he had just done there.

"No!" he cried, withdrawing his head before his tongue could savor the liquid. His thirst unquenched, he set off for his sleeping spot, exhausted.

"I spy something beginning with _V_…" a chilly female voice whispered. The wind emphasized the phantasmal "_V"_. Kev looked back over his shoulder and there she was again, just like the last time, only now _she _was on the edge.

"I'm definitely not hallucinating this time," he muttered, facing her. "But you're dead, Alice. How is this possible?"

The girl twined a streak of her golden hair around her finger as her blue eyes fell upon the white cub. "You never saw me die. Why are you so sure I'm dead?"

"I… I… I'm not," he stammered, displaying a freaky stare of sleepy confusion. "I just know."

"Okay," she nodded, "I guess that makes me a ghost, then. Aren't you afraid?"

"No," he stated calmly, "the dead can't hurt you."

A beautiful smile spread across her face, exactly the same one that had made him fall hard for her when they first started dating.

"You know that's not true," she giggled, "they _did _hurt you… in so many ways."

Kev gazed away, directing his attention to a small clump of shrubs to his left. Somehow, staring at her only strengthened his fear of the dream. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm spying," she murmured softly, "and right now I spy something beginning with V…"

At first, he didn't get it. Nervously, his tired eyes wandered about in search of whatever hers were fixed upon. They seemed to fall on him. Then, the cold "_V"_ echoed in his head and mingled with the flashbacks (although he still preferred to refer to them as _the product of a crazy, newfound imagination_).

"It's not me!" he raved. "It was just a dream!"

"If you don't believe me, see for yourself, darling," she said, stepping aside.

Slowly, the white cub headed to the edge of the pond and looked down into its smooth, moonlit carpeting. Much to his surprise and fear, this time he saw nothing but the uninterrupted silver of the water. He turned toward Alice, goggle-eyed, and as soon as he did, his heart started pounding more intensely than ever within his chest, threatening to break free from his body.

_Wait! The hearts of the dead don't beat! This must be a dream! It ought to!_

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she whispered.

It was after the sweetness in each word dissolved into sourness that a dead-cold hand poked its way out to the surface, grabbing hold of his left hind leg and dragging him inside violently. He didn't get to see it, but he was sure it had been a hand.

Before he could realize it, he found himself meters below the surface and sinking ever deeper. The hand's hold became weaker and weaker, although it didn't release him. His lungs shrunk and shut, forcing his body to subsist on the little oxygen he had managed to grasp before the unforeseen attack. _At least, now he knew for certain that he was alive. He wouldn't be much longer, though. It didn't take long for the pressure in his head, caused by asphyxia, to grow stronger and heavier and constrict him like an anaconda. Unearthly screeches, little, shivering voices of little, shivering creatures, seemingly near but unmistakably so far away, in a distant world, broke into his thoughts. They summoned him and rushed him and wanted him to wake up but he couldn't because this was reality and he still couldn't believe he hadn't reached the bottom and wondered how deep the water hole really was but it didn't matter at all because it was obvious that he wouldn't make it and the Kuzimo and his friends would find his body floating here in the morning and thinking of poor Jill crying inconsolably made it even worse but now he was in pain and could feel a million chattery teeth chewing his ears, back, belly, legs, and tail and he couldn't imagine in what Universe death was as pleasant as a warm bath but now he lost his sight as life bubbled out of him…_

"Ahh!" screamed Kev, not so much in fear as in pain. His friends were all over him, biting him awake. Rivulets of tears adorned their faces like a sort of creepy makeup. A huge bunch of unknown cubs were gathered around him, just a couple of steps away. He recognized the princess and the two males who had given him such a hard time the day before. They bore the most touching stares of shock he'd ever witnessed. If he hadn't been coexisting with lion cubs for more than two weeks and become familiar with the mischievous malevolence surprisingly well-hidden behind their misleading appearances, he would have regarded them as cute.

The sun, stagnant in the apex of the heavens, shone upon them all and had painted the sky sapphire. Not a cloud could the white cub detect lurking in its dominions, nor could he admire the blueness completely. His eyes had burst open, unaware of the intensity of the light that would greet them, and were now adjusting to the blinding brightness of the day. Once he was able to see properly, he noticed his friends hadn't quit nipping him with their sharp teeth.

"What are you doing? Raghu, Jill… Stop it!" he demanded, obviating Aazi and Kopa, who had also partaken of this strange game.

The cubs obeyed and sprang off of him, startled. Immediately, Jill approached slowly and cuddled him, droplets of salt water dripping onto his pelt from her eyes. Why… Why was she crying? He wanted to know, but all his strength left him when he attempted to say the question out loud. So it _had _been a dream. All of it. _A very stupid dream._ He used to hear about dreams within dreams in movies and cartoons. He'd never had one himself, though. At least not until now.

"You're alive!" sobbed his sister repeatedly, as if she were convincing herself of a fact that had stopped being true long ago. "You scared us all so much!"

He still found it hard to speak. "Wh-what… I don't understand."

"You weren't breathing… We thought you…"

Jill continued, but Kev ignored the rest of the explanation and stole back into the depths where he had drowned, somehow fearless to go over the whole nightmare again.

"Hey! Don't fall asleep!" cried Jill, nudging him. Lifting up his head, he grunted and glared at her. "Sorry… I'm just worried, that's all. Can you get up?"

"Yep," answered her brother, oblivious to the lack of energy his body suffered from. Carefully, he applied pressure on the ground with his paws and began to lift himself up slowly, laden with languor. He remained on foot until the last speck of power stored in him faded away. As he lost his balance and flopped onto the carpet of grass, he faintly listened to ill gasps from all the witnessing cubs.

"I can't get up!" he moaned, weak and motionless.

"We'll help you," muttered Jill soothingly, signaling Kopa to do something Kev couldn't catch with his eyes. Instantly afterwards, she beckoned Raghu over for help to her side. Focused on the two lions in front of him, the male outsider forgot about the prince, who had silently settled behind him. It wasn't until a mouth clung tightly to his tail that he became aware of his whereabouts.

"What are you gonna do?" inquired Kev, his tone juddering nervously.

"Get up just a little," ordered Jill, sounding as professional as a doctor. "We'll do the rest."

Kev did as he was told, accomplishing less than expected. Before giving up and sagging his muscles, the three cubs started working simultaneously; Jill supported him so that he wouldn't fall again, Raghu nudged him up with his muzzle, and Kopa pulled him to his paws. Consecutive tugs of excruciating pain rippled from the section of his tail under the Prince's grasp to his brain. After enduring this for a fair and fruitless amount of time, the pain spurred him to spill a bucketful of tears.

_Why? Why did they always go for the tail? _It was even _kind_ of funny… All the times a tail bite had surprised him, Kopa's had been the guilty jaws, directly or indirectly.

"Please! It hurts!" he sobbed several shrill yowls later. He remembered this was the way cattle were brought to their hoofs. No! He didn't even have to go that far; two experts had done almost the exact same thing with lionesses in that TV show whose name was a blur at the moment. Nevertheless, unlike those animals, he wasn't sedated and had to bear with the torture of having teeth instead of hands in charge of his tail.

Twice, a heavy dizziness almost pinned him to the ground again, and would have succeeded, if the three cubs hadn't aided him.

"Can you walk?" asked Jill.

"I think so," replied Kev, much less confident than the first time.

As he plodded his way to the water hole, he shifted his gaze downward and recoiled, disgusted, at the sight of his underbelly and hind legs slightly tainted yellow. "Oh, no…"

"It's okay," sighed his sister, who walked alongside him. "We'll wash it off in the water…"

"No!" he interrupted, startling her. What if the hand decided to pull him under again? "I'm sorry… I… Let's go home first."

Heedless of his own words, he proceeded to drink, slurping the liquid up at a fast pace. The female outsider simply giggled behind him. _Home_. She never imagined her brother would ever think of Pride Rock as such. But he did. And she realized that so did she.

Keeping an eye on him, Jill waited until Kev slaked his thirst and then, together, they headed back to where the rest of the cubs were waiting. The worried anxiety in the little ones' eyes disappeared after they heard out the male white cub's explanation for the happening. The Pridelanders and his sister also bought it. Up to some point, even _he_ did.

A brief session of mutual introductions preceded the _Tag_ game they played so cheerily until noon settled in the Kuzimo Kingdom. Oddly enough, Kev participated, and not because he felt it his obligation to do so; he actually _required_ some fun. Yes: the perfect medicine for the weakness to vanish and the nightmare to quit haunting him. Luckily, nobody teased him about having wet his fur.

The way in which the prince and the princess chased each other constantly did not go unnoticed, too. Only God knew why the sight of the two cubs running and screaming rapturously made Jill's stomach churn. _Why couldn't they tag on others? It seemed as though the one saw no one else but the other. It was so stupid! So lame! So… so… Ah!_

"Hey, what are you looking at?" asked Aazi, sitting down beside her.

Jill ignored her. "Huh?"

"I said: '_what are you looking at?'_ Weren't you listening?"

"Sorry," she muttered, never diverting her attention from the two royal playmates.

"Looks like Kopa's having a lot of fun."

The white cub mumbled something that might have been "yeah" and turned toward Aazi, breaking the invisible neck brace that kept the annoying view of Kopa and Nitara before her. A mischievous smirk clung to her face and the Pridelander next to her jumped back when a paw pushed her lightly.

"Tag! You're it!" hollered Jill, leaping away from the she-cub, who instantaneously sprinted after her. Yeah. This would distract her in the meantime. Why did she have to be bothered by their playing together, anyway? There were a lot more things to be happy about. She'd retrieved the long lost joys of life; she was a little girl again, with friends and even a sort of family. A second chance to build a different destiny was all she ever wanted since her parents' death, and now she had it in her hands. Well, her _paws_.

Unfortunately, noon's quick arrival drowned the fun. The adult lionesses, who had been warily watching over them from the pride's sleeping area, approached rather stealthily and carried their cubs away for a bath. Kopa was waving Nitara goodbye, when a sudden growl shook him.

"Time to leave, Pridelanders," grumbled Irushimpa, who stepped between him and the ebbing view of the princess in her mother's mouth. Four lionesses had trailed behind him, among which was the messenger sent to Pride Rock the night before. Their eyes glittered with that frightening coldness their leader's had when he first saw the five intruders being led into the core of his kingdom by her daughter.

"But we don't know the way," protested Kopa, in the least whiny tone of voice he could bring forth.

"You will not be going alone," explained the King, faking affability, "we shall escort you."

The walk home began shortly afterwards. At irregular intervals and for barely more than a second, the lionesses exchanged a couple of words. Irushimpa, for his part, at the head of the group, advanced in the deadly silence that marked his seemingly soulless character. Occasionally, he emitted orders grumpily. More than that, he felt no need to do. Kopa, moving alongside Jill, blabbered in whispers cut repeatedly by the adults' low grumbles, mostly about how cool Nitara had been. In other words, the female outsider experienced a _delightful_ return. Raghu and Aazi, preferring to pass up the opportunity to admire the prince's candent narrative, kept up at a slower pace behind them, and Kev, just as had occurred during their unintended journey out of the Pridelands, was destined to the isolated rear of the bunch.

Everything was going wonderfully; he'd had a nightmare that had almost killed him and, if the rules of his new life (unbelievably enough, he still regarded it _rather_ new) suffered no drastic changes, would probably have another before next sunrise; throughout the entire day, Kopa and Aazi evaded him when he attempted to hold a friendly conversation with them, the first out of anger for the steamy afternoon discussion, the second out of confusion resulting from the quarrel of the conflicting emotions in her heart; he would be chastised by his surrogate mother, not to mention that he'd surely find sullen glowers of disappointment in all of the lionesses' faces. _Totally super._

The sun's radiation intensified as the hours wore away sluggishly. At a certain point, its scorching kiss became unbearable. Kev slowed down to a stop, feeling the rays devouring the strength he had retrieved. The rest kept moving on absently and soon left him too far behind. His weak legs managed to support him for a while longer, but could not afford to carry him anymore.

By the time the others noticed he was gone and fell back to assist him, the white cub's legs had given way and spilled him on the dry, green bed underneath him. He watched as his friends and escorts drew nearer, first mistaking them for some of the blurry chlorophyll smudges that had invaded his field of vision. The doubts abandoned him upon being nudged by Jill's muzzle and hearing faint voices calling his name. Voices so distant, like the ones in his dream. Voices from the world he was slowly becoming a stranger to.

"Kev, listen to me," whispered Jill, a hint of tremor in her voice, "you've got to get up."

He understood and tried to let her name out of his mouth, but his terrifying wheezing wouldn't allow him. The other three cubs, gathered around him, encouraged him to rise as well, although his sister's words were the only ones he could distinguish clearly.

After bearing with the little ones' futile attempts to revive their friend, with no pity whatsoever, the furious King stepped in and pushed Jill aside.

"Get up," he began, stabbing his burning hazel orbs into the male outsider's weakened body, "or I'll leave you to the vultures!"

The hoarseness and lack of compassion with which Irushimpa spoke made both cubs and lionesses flinch. Kev wrung one final effort out of his legs and collapsed helplessly.

"Well," said the King, rather annoyed, swinging his head back toward the lionesses, "won't one of you drag this pathetic excuse for a lion along? Come on! Move!"

The lioness which had been sent to Pride Rock bowed timorously to her ruler and slogged over to where the white cub lay, lifting him up by the scruff. Her emerald gaze then fell on Jill, who maintained a steady focus on her brother once the walk was resumed. She wished to calm the worried sibling down with a word or two, impeded not only by the task imposed upon her, but also by uncertainty. If her attention hadn't been limited exclusively to the path, the female outsider, and the corpse-cold ball of white fur between her teeth, she would have realized that the other cubs aimed intent stares at their friend as well.

A few clouds crawled through the sky, claiming spots next to the star of the day, although not daring to take over the zenith, where sunlight hurt the most. The vegetation the group trampled with their sore feet exhaled discarnate ghosts of vapor which reinforced the ever-growing army of rain bearers. Soon, a battle between fire and water, light and darkness, would unfold above, and the victor would drain its wrath over the world below.

It took longer for the Pridelanders to show up than the Kuzimo had expected. Irushimpa, whose thin patience had disintegrated into sandy dust with the events of yesterday and today, found the delay outrageous and regarded it a personal affront. The lionesses, rendered speechless by the King's grumping, prayed silently for the members of the rival clan to come at once.

The irritating croaks issuing through his clenched jaws hushed at the sight of five lions approaching from far on the other side of the borderline. Irushimpa waited solemnly, seated on his haunches with a bloated chest that conveyed superiority.

"Greetings, Simba," exclaimed the auburn-maned lion, addressing the only male in the foreign group.

The King of Pride Rock looked at the monarch of the North both with respect and unease. "Irushimpa."

"I'll spare you any unnecessary formalities," murmured the Kuzimo ruler, crossing the borderline provocatively and almost pressing his hungry face and fiery eyes to his. "Take your cubs and don't ever let this happen again. You know how dangerous the savannahs can be…"

The golden lion growled, pulling himself away from his rival's bloodthirsty glare. "Is that a threat?"

"Simba, no," chimed in Nala, who sat behind him along with Kiara and the other two mothers who had wept so bitterly the night before. "Let's take our children and leave."

The Pridelander leader nodded, controlling the anger within. The younglings ran toward their mothers once the Kuzimo stepped aside and hugged them, rubbing their heads against their soft, pleasantly familiar fur. Upon contemplating this touching scene of mutual nuzzles and gushing tears, one would have guessed that these families had separated a lifetime ago.

"Wait, where's Kev?" asked Kiara after welcoming Jill, uncomfortably and suddenly fearfully aware of his absence. Her amber eyes reposed wistfully on the white she-cub. "Jill, where's your brother?"

Before any explanations could reach her eardrums, the lioness carrying Kev appeared before the princess. A gape of terror imbrued Kiara's visage and copious trickles of anguish displaced the streamlets of relief rushing down her cheeks.

"What did you do to him?" she demanded to know menacingly and yet heartbrokenly, as the stranger lay the cub down gingerly a few feet from her paws.

"We have done nothing," stated the Kuzimo King, and a whip of silence flogged both sides. Having no further necessity to remain, he turned his back on the Pridelanders and departed gloomily with his four lionesses following close behind.

"Irushimpa," bellowed Simba, a call to which the brown-furred lion speared a disinterested glimpse backwards. "My major-domo has informed me of the presence of white lionesses here, around the northern boundary. I thought you may have come across…"

Irushimpa, infuriated, swung round abruptly and faced his incriminator with an aggressive smile. "I know where this is going… You think I may have hurt them, just like you thought I was responsible for what happened to Cabha."

Simba did not reply. The hostile lion cackled somberly, a cold tingle running down the cubs' spines. "I won't lie to you: if I had stumbled across any white lions, they would have been dead by now. But I have seen none!"

"Oh, and by the way, prince," he added, violently thrusting his attention into the Simba's son's tearstained face, "I knew those cubs weren't Kiara's all along."

Kopa shrank in fright close to his mother at the intimidating growl that followed the harsh monarch's cold remark. Nala pressed the shivering boy to her belly and soothed his nervous sobs with gentle whispers.

Simba felt he could no longer bottle up his rage. "You better leave now."

Irushimpa's tenebrous smirk gleamed under the scarce sunlight rain. "We'll find the time to work out our differences… very soon."

That said, the brown lion turned slowly and took off for his den again, this time without looking back. The Pridelanders watched as their rivals disappeared into the tall grasses and shrubs of the savannah. While each mother grabbed her cub by the scruff, Simba checked for vital signs in the little body splayed almost beneath him. Jill, frozen in her surrogate mother's mouth, hitched her teary eyes to the King's expression, for the slightest wince, the feeblest smile, could mean the difference between life and death.

A momentary haze of suspense blinded the expectant lionesses and little ones. Waits such as this halted even the toughest of hearts, and right now the Pridelanders' were hovering near a stroke. The misty fear dwindled away when the red-maned lion picked the white cub up, although his worried eyes compelled some of it to stay.

Gray clouds had occupied the diurnal sky and the water stowed in them came crashing down before the group could make it to Pride Rock. Frequently, bolts of lightning cut burning rills through the belly of the atmosphere, followed by infernal cracks of thunder. The parents tried to shield their children from the shattering storm, but the silver rain's fury was inescapable. Soaked from head to tail, they floundered through the flooded lands until they reached the solemn rock structure they dwelt in, scrambling their way into it with precaution. The smallest mistake on their part could result in a lamentable tragedy.

The rest of the pride helped this brave party inside and greeted each of its members with warm hugs and affectionate licks. All the rescued cubs, except Kev, who still hadn't regained consciousness, were carefully placed on the stony ground and offered the best parts of the meal. The other younglings had already eaten and watched their friends rip and devour the antelope's flesh with amusement. A lot of questions and doubts tortured their little minds, but, since their mothers had warned them not to bother them in any way, they decided to postpone the interview for the following day.

Kovu and Kiara kissed passionately upon reuniting. For the first time, Kopa didn't see it as something gross. He thought it was a beautiful manifestation of mutual love, a feeling he would like to share with someone special in the future. Jill's '_thank you'_ kiss and fragmentary memories of the many occasions in which he'd caught the two lovebirds making out coalesced, casting the weirdest delusion before his amber eyes: one strong enough to make him blush.

The whispered conversation his mother held with his sister and some lionesses in one of the corners of the cave pushed the prince from his dreamscape, although he didn't quite understand what it was about. He only knew for certain that it had something to do with Kev.

Nala's stern countenance depicted dejectedness. "He is very weak."

"He needs something to eat," stated the one next to her, "but he's not waking up; we've tried everything."

"Wait!" Kiara yelled violently, drawing glinting gazes of hope toward her. "Maybe… Maybe he can have milk."

"Milk," mumbled Nala, pondering thoroughly over the suggestion. "That might work."

A resplendent grin stained Kiara's low spirits. "Yes! Guala weaned her sons a few days ago. I'm sure she still has some spare milk."

The arrangements made, Simba's daughter hauled Kev over to where the young mother lay huddled with her two cubs. The brothers perked their ears and lifted their heads at the light thuds of approaching paws. Their innate response was to leap about playfully. Since newborns were forbidden to leave the den, the princess would usually cheer them up with a load of games inside. As a result, she had become a visual synonym of fun to them.

Now, though, Kiara's face was absent of the happiness they had familiarized themselves with. A stark feeling of early grief, much like hers, preyed upon their eagerness voraciously.

"Is Kev alright?" asked one of them, his eyes shimmering with glum innocence.

"He's sick, sweetie," replied the golden lioness as delicately as she could. "He will need some of your mommy's milk to get back on his paws. You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course they don't," murmured Guala, who rested behind her sons. The two cubs shook their heads to mean they were okay with it.

Kiara giggled and put Kev down close to the lioness. "Guala, thank you so much for this."

"Don't mention it."

She then gave the white cub's tail a soft nip, forcing a shrill moan out of him. Unconsciously, he pressed his muzzle to Guala's belly and started feeding. Before snuggling up to their mother and returning to the surreal hideouts in their dreams, the two brothers looked at Kev with melancholy, as though with longing for the taste of the nutriment he was receiving.

Kiara kissed him goodnight and retreated to her sleeping spot. Nala was already grooming Kopa when she set Jill between her paws for the same purpose. Unlike the female outsider, the prince would always complain come bath time. He hated it more than anything in the world. Surprisingly enough, this time he spoke not one word of protest. Not only did he feel exhausted; a huge doubt burdened him inside and made the hard strokes of his mother's tongue feel like the tickles of a feather. _Who is Cabha_?

_Oh, well_, he told himself, _I'll ask Dad later_…

* * *

Sorry about the delay. Author blocks really suck! So, just for fun, do you have any predictions as to what will happen? I'm dying to tell you, but that would just ruin the mystery... :)

Anyway, thanks to all the ones who have reviewed my story up to now. Please keep it up, I LOVE REVIEWS!

Oh... one last thing. I won't be posting any new chapters on this story or "Love Like Snow" until the end of January, because I'm not going to be home. Sure, I could try to write something in the hotel I'll be staying in, but I just _have_ to be home when I write. I can't do it right any other way. I'm really, really sorry.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**

* * *

**

_The night had shrouded the city in darkness for a very long time, but now its shadows were retreating and dawn was slowly settling in. Skyscrapers glittered with billions of shining glass windows. The violent honking and rumbling of cars seemed eternal. Yet, a deadly silence spread through the corners of Jill's head. She had a mission, and she could not afford to fail._

_Many fears and doubts gathered in an overwhelming cloud of emotions that blew a sharp gust of pain into her soul, riling her. Kev was dead and gone, a fact she still found hard to accept. None of the cops or doctors could explain the cause concretely, but she knew it the instant she saw the bite marks on her brother's neck. _Severe hemorrhage_, they had told her. _Murder, _she had concluded. _

_She breathed in, then out. An oddly _professional _coldness, much like that which surgeons require to perform risky procedures, froze the sorrow eating her insides as the warm air escaped her nostrils. She fastened her grip on the hammer she held in her left hand and fumbled for the stake in the back of her jeans with her right. Ready again, she took her cell phone from her pocket and reread the message she'd been sent two days after the funeral. _

_The funeral! It had been the third she'd assisted in the last two years and, not strangely enough, the loneliest of them all. A part of her could only think of revenge, feel nothing besides hate and grief; it gave her the motivation to keep crawling. The other, though, wanted to join the family, to confront the enemies and lose. _

_Somewhere along the path fate had woven for her, life had lost its charm. Despite her strong desire to escape her misery, something fettered her to this world. Death had never loved her the same way she loved Kev, her mother, and her father. Maybe she wouldn't bless her with her icy kiss because she didn't like to be loved back._

_Her teary blue eyes studied the words glowing through the small screen in silent fascination. "It's time for Alyra. Go to Bear Hill Cemetery. Bring protection."_

_"Bring protection," she wondered. Kev would always use those terms to mean, "don't forget your crucifix." Who had messaged her? It didn't really matter. All she wanted now was blood. Blood on her hands._

_By the time she arrived to the scary burial ground, the night had grown lighter. The place looked bleak and gloomy even under the weakening darkness. Two blows with the hammer were enough to break the lock that separated her from her objective. She pushed the rusty black gates open and allowed herself in, admirably unafraid. Her head swiveled rapidly back and forth, as if viewing a tennis match, examining the surroundings as much as her human eyes would let her. The statues of marble and stone guarding the tombs stared at her disdainfully. The spirits resting inside the dingy mausoleums rose at the invasive thuds of her steadfast march and set their lifeless eyes on her. She couldn't see them, but a whispery voice sang into her ears like a threatened snake, warning her about their presence. It said the dead envied her for still having what they had lost so long ago, and loathed her for not cherishing it properly. _

"_They are going to get you," the serpentine voice hissed, "and take you away."_

_"If only that were true," scoffed the girl, tears travelling down her pale cheeks. The dying stars admired the last traces of their silver resplendence reflected in the salty rivulets that adorned Jill's face, as she veered toward her recently deceased brother's grave. The fact that this cemetery had been selected as his final resting place had made it harder for her to come. But she needed peace of mind. Needed to kill. To try and, hopefully, die._

_"Kevin Hart," she read, breaking into a fit of sobs she muffled with her spare hand._

_Playing with fire would burn both of them eventually, she reasoned. They had both acknowledged the diverse dangers involved in the games they had chosen to play. She just didn't think the flames would consume her brother first. _

_Her bitter weeping reached a crescendo as happy memories usurped her thoughts and reminded her of good times long gone._

_"Jill," the wind whispered. No. It was a voice, one she'd heard before. Comforting. Familiar. _Real_…_

_"Don't cry," it said, and its bearer placed a hand on her shoulder. The touch numbed her spine, pretty much like Aiden's had done the night she'd killed him._

_Facing the stranger, she recoiled upon looking into his mysterious blue eyes. They glimmered with sickness, but blazed in pain as they met the cross hanging on her chest._

_A faint shriek slipped through Jill's lips. "Kev?"_

_The boy in the black suit nodded, avoiding the repulsive amulet. _

_"What… How… You're…" stammered the sister, unable to comprehend this unnatural occurrence. "You…" she croaked once again, and suddenly understood what was going on, the reason her brother had miraculously appeared before her; why he feared the crucifix so much."They turned you." _

_"I'll tell you everything," explained Kev hastily. "But I can't now; it's almost dawn."_

_"Was it you that messaged me? H-how did you get to me?" she asked, her brain choking on its own confusion. A load of other questions bothered her, but these two were the only ones shock couldn't restrain within her._

_Kev winced as he remembered feeding upon Goth Chick. He'd reached his sister through _her _cell phone. "You're not listening!"_

_Jill flinched at the unearthly growl. Her brother smelled her fear. "I'm sorry. We… It's just that there's very little time." _

_Before carrying on, he let a moment of calmness settle between them so that she could organize her mind. "We _must _finish what we've begun." _

_"You mentioned Alyra," she pointed out, much more composed, although her accelerated heartbeats deceived no one._

_"I found her coffin," he stated coldly. "She's hiding in one of the mausoleums, here. We'll need…"_

_The girl, foreseeing her sibling's petition, showed him the hammer and drew the stake from the back of her jeans. "I brought all the materials, just in case."_

_An inward giggle spread through Kev's dead soul; he would've never expected less from his dear sister. Always so prepared. "Good."_

_Quietly, the twins made their way through the sinister corridors. Rows and rows of mausoleums, some in better shape than others, ran along the sides of their path. At a certain point, the silence became unbearable. They both threw a couple of meaningless words into the placid breeze, which somehow acquired an incomprehensible degree of importance shortly afterwards. Thus, the mumbles evolved into a much healthier conversation, one that included not only profound feelings, but also shared grief for the death of dreams and hopes. _

_Kev revealed the circumstances that had led him to his cursed destiny. All the details flowed from his still heart with such vividness that Jill, more than once, forgot that he was no longer human and felt like hugging him. Fortunately, the snake snugly coiled up in the back of her head would talk some sense into her whenever she deluded herself into seeing the corpse keeping her company as her actual brother._

_Definitely, there was something more somber about him. His skin had blanched with the caress of death and almost glowed under the decaying moonlight. His unblinking eyes, absent of humanity, burned like a fierce blue flame. He was _dead_; she couldn't put it any simpler than that. And even though she wouldn't admit it, she was afraid of him now. _

_Wait! Something about his 'conversion' story puzzled her. How _did _he turn into one of them? He couldn't have… not without having taken some of their…_

"_Blood," she uttered absently. The word aroused an uncontrollable lust for the substance in her morbid listener. He glimpsed back, and would have bared his fangs, if the sight of her crucifix hadn't repelled him. _

_His pained sigh called her attention. "You okay?"_

"_Yes," he panted, "we're close."_

_The prowl lasted not more than ten minutes. They stopped before one of the tombs to their left. The door, slightly ajar, disclosed the coffin's position. The sister pictured the monstrous creature resting peacefully in the horizontally laid mahogany bed that had been meant for some 'Meredith Leon'._

_She walked in, Kev following close behind. They stood still in front of the oblong box and removed the lid together. Inside, the fiend was sleeping and probably dreaming of her next victim. Little did she know that she would never wake up to fulfill that dream._

"_I thought you needed an invitation to get in," said Jill, addressing her brother, although not really interested in hearing out a clarification. _

"_We do when _we _deal with the living," he rejoined, and snickered lightly at an idea that sprang to his mind. "I guess even the supernatural has some sort of bureaucracy." _

We_. Apparently, her brother had embraced his destiny and accepted his fate with no complaints whatsoever. But she hadn't. She _couldn't_._

_It quickly occurred to her that changing the subject would be better; much more crucial matters waited to be discussed, anyway. "Who's going to do it?"_

"_I should," he suggested. "You got Aiden, so I guess it's my turn. You can wait outside, if you want. You don't need to see this."_

"_Okay," she nodded curtly, "but remember to make it deep enough."_

_Before leaving, Jill handed the two weapons over to the boy. The room, vacant of life, blackened as she closed the door behind her._

_With one hand, Kev lifted up the sharp, wooden instrument and placed it gently over the sleeping girl's chest. Subsequently, the other raised the complementary weapon high above it._

"_Deep," he murmured softly, and let the hammer fall. Twice._

Alyra's final scream pushed Jill from her slumber. Her eyes burst open and wandered frantically within their round confines, searching for any potential threats. As they spotted none, her lids shut again, although she couldn't regain sleep. The fiend's death scene reverberated in her head: the stake ripping its way through her heart; her burning into ashes; her pain. Those images would haunt the she-cub for more than one night.

Her surrogate father's fur protected her right flank and rendered the idea of rousing pointless. Thus, she remained splayed on the stony ground of the cave, reviewing all her dreams and memories. The introspection, though not much helpful, made her realize that she needed to talk to Kev urgently. Ever since their first day in the Pridelands, they had crammed the troubles of their past life into their subconscious. Jill could sense the maximum capacity had been reached and, to prevent an overflowing that could endanger her sanity, she needed to speak her mind.

_Where was Kiara?_ She noticed the princess wasn't occupying her sleeping spot. The absence of her warmth felt uncomfortable. Cold from the early morning breeze, she snuggled up to Kovu, who unconsciously wrapped his arm around her, and allowed her to resume her rest.

* * *

The sun cast away the clouds which had wreaked havoc on the kingdom the day before. Once the King had woken up, Zazu reported the losses that had resulted from the storm. Anticipating the busy day ahead of him, Simba departed early to attend to all the damaged areas and victims. The black-maned lion, having been entreated to aid his mate's father, left the female outsider's side and caught up with him.

The other members of the pride rose slowly as the day wore on. Two parties exited the den to forage the savannahs for good prey. The lionesses which had decided to stay took on the task of bathing the little ones. Those submerged in a much too profound sleep, like Jill, were not stripped of their dreams.

Kopa, Raghu, and Aazi, after a grooming process executed by their respective mothers that the two males found more than unpleasant, hurried to where the white she-cub lay. Hoping to wake her up and rush out of Pride Rock together before their parents remembered to rebuke them for having ditched Zazu, the three of them engaged in a tough struggle to pull her from the clouds she was riding at the moment.

Since the pushing would not budge her from her slumber, they resorted to verbal means. Their low buzzing shoved her violently into reality. A steady sibilant sound, much like those which follow a hard explosion, mingled with the high-pitch soughs and stunned her ears. Recognizing her harassers by their voices, she moaned uncomfortably and tried her best to ignore the unrelenting disturbances.

"Jill, come on!" whined the prince, while his comrades uttered similar complaints accompanied by physical motivations that ranged from light thumps to stabbing nudges. He leaned his muzzle down over her skull and spoke her name repeatedly, like a broken record. Somehow, this reminded her of Sheldon rapping on Penny's door, although it was more of a _Penny-Penny-Penny-Penny_ than a _knock-knock-knock-Penny_.

_What was with them? Oh, no, no, no…_ They would not goad her into rousing; she would remain as still as a statue until _she_ chose to get up of her own free will. They held no control over her. _None_.

After enduring the droning and poking for some time, her surroundings fell silent out of magic. She'd won!

"You leave me no choice, Jill," stated the golden, amber-eyed cub, breaking the peace with a mischievous voice. "Raghu, it's time to perform the '_Kev waking procedure'_."

"What? No!" protested his pal. "She's gonna hit me!"

The prince's gaze fell reproachfully upon Eshe's son. With no desire to anger his best friend, he complied reluctantly and sat quietly behind the seemingly dormant female. Aazi, curious about the mentioned operation, studied the boys' every move intently.

"Last chaaance," warned Kopa, who, upon receiving no response, commanded the cub behind his victim to execute the blow. What sort of blow it was, Jill would learn in a quite painful way.

Raghu bent down and picked up her tail with his mouth. Before she could stop him from doing what she thought he'd do, a bright sting flamed up her rear nerve and forced her to her paws brusquely. A loud bang echoed as she bumped her forehead on the future king's muzzle.

"Ah! My head!"

"Uh! My mouth!"

Both of them stumbled back, rubbing their paws on the spots they'd bruised. Uzima's daughter, the sole onlooker, rolled onto her back and burst out laughing at the ridiculous scene played before her. The racket of mixed agony and mockery attracted a bunch of worried adults. Gathering around them, the lionesses commenced a session of queries and exclamations that not only smothered the little ones, but also ruined their plan to escape their impending punishment.

"Are you alright?"

"Did you hurt yourselves?"

"What were you thinking?"

"Oh, sweetie, you have a bump on your head!"

"Kopa, what happened to your mouth?"

"Raghu, what on earth are you doing with Jill's tail?"

"Nala, you better check this out!"

"Eshe! Uzima!"

Much to the young gang's misfortune, the required mothers heeded the females' calls and joined them in short time. Having been informed of what had occurred and left alone to deal with their children, they looked down at the four cubs. Vexation and disappointment stained their faces. The younglings grinned apologetically but, as the resolute lionesses wouldn't loosen their stern glares, rapidly wiped them off with a droopy expression. Lowering their eyes, they braced themselves for the chastisement.

"Did you think we would forget about what happened yesterday?" Simba's mate demanded to know. Kopa was the one who shrank the most; he'd never heard his mother adopt such a harsh tone of voice.

None of the cubs dared to reply. Silence was all the answer Nala needed to proceed. Her two companions also contributed to her fiery lecture. Aside from scolding them for sneaking out of the Pridelands despite the many occasions _they_ had warned them about the dangers lurking in foreign territories, the furious trio emphasized, in an overly dramatic and meticulous description, the sundry and tragic fates that could have befallen the young ones.

"Are we grounded?" inquired the prince, almost whimpering, once the reprehension came to an apparent end.

"No!" roared Nala, causing her son's head to sag even more. She delivered an additional bunch of incising words to the adventurers' pinned ears. "If you ever do something like this again," she concluded, "you'll know the true definition of _trouble_."

The four of them nodded nervously to mean the words had been crystal-clear. "_Now_ you're grounded."

The sentence dictated, Uzima, Eshe, and Nala walked out of the den to let their children meditate over their irresponsible actions.

"Five days!" cried Aazi. "I can't believe they grounded us for five days!"

Raghu turned toward the prince, a murderous intent brightening his features. "You see! I told you we should've left Jill behind!"

"Really, Kopa," interjected the outsider, "you could've gone without me; it would've been okay with me."

"But they would've punished _you_," replied Kopa, in a tone so sad that Jill couldn't help feeling touched.

The words died in the gentle breeze circulating through their monolithic home as the she-cub nuzzled up to her compassionate friend. The pinkish skin under the fur in his cheeks took on a bloody red hue. For a minute or so after splitting apart, their eyes maintained a steady and yet drunken focus on each other.

"Guys," chimed in Aazi, "what are you doing?"

Instantaneously, the prince looked away and eyed the inquirer. "N-nothing."

"Yes, you were!" hollered his best friend. "You want to kiss her, don't you?"

In an effort to silence him, the golden cub leapt on his accuser and pinned him down. The victim, consequently, blew a load of loud fake kisses into the damp air, seeking to enrage his captor. A fierce wallop on his head served as an indicative that he had succeeded.

Mistaking the display of aggression for a game, the observant Pridelander pushed the prince aside and held him nailed to the ground.

"Pinned ya!" announced the girl with the light-brown coat, laughing heartily.

Kopa tried to wriggle away, but her control over him was firm. "Get off of me, Aazi!"

"Hey," complained Raghu, pulling himself up, "you almost cracked my head!"

The three little ones did not give up their fighting, although they carried it to a much more playful and safer level. They were no longer dealing with grownup emotions that eluded their callow minds; all they cared about now was having fun. Jill, however, didn't pick up on the dispute waged before her a few minutes ago. Not even the screams of joy that ensued could disrupt the sullen brooding she had plunged in. She noticed Kev wasn't sleeping next to Guala, where he had been left the night before. The adult lioness lay sound asleep, and so did her two sons, but _her_ brother was missing.

_Where did he go?_

"Dad!" called the prince anxiously, freeing the pensive girl from the intricacies of her imagination.

She watched him leap around the red-maned lion, which had walked into the den unexpectedly. He'd evidently decided to take a break and check on the pride.

"Hi, Dad! What did you do this morning?"

The King let out a muffled laugh as his son tripped on his own flailing tail. "Whoa! Be careful. I gotta tell you: I've never seen a grounded cub act like this before. Why are you so excited?"

"Oh, that's right," he sighed dejectedly, "I'm grounded."

"Well, next time, think twice before you decide to explore lands that are off boundaries."

A toothy grin glimmered between his son's cheeks. Simba ruffled up his fluffy, brownish head-tuft with a stroke of his paw and swung round to return to his herculean toil in the hot savannahs. Before he could get to the cave's mouth, the boy shrieked in desperation.

"Dad, don't go! I… I have a question."

The King glimpsed back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Who's Cabha?"

The question had a spontaneous and particularly strong effect on the monarch; his irises glistened with concern and a gaping grimace altered his serene visage. His unprecedented open-mouthed astonishment shook the witnessing cubs.

"I'm sorry," he panted lightly, his eyes swelling with tears of regret, "it's just that the other king mentioned the name and I didn't think…"

"No, it's okay, son," interposed the male adult, patting the prince on the back to calm him down. "Cabha was a cub that lived before you were born; she'd joined us along with Kovu's pride."

"Oh," he gasped after recomposing himself, as if he'd reached some sort of epiphany. "So she was like an _ex-outlander_. But why did the other king say something happened to her?"

The King lowered his eyes. "Because something _did_ happen to her."

"What?" asked Kopa, his shrill voice filling with an innocent compassion for that enigmatic girl he'd never met.

"You're still too young to know."

The cub's face wrinkled in annoyance. _So much suspense for nothing._

"But Da-ad!" he objected boisterously. "I'm too mature for my age; you can tell me."

The white she-cub snorted at her friend's winking eye. "Yeah, right."

"Jill has spoken!" exclaimed Simba light-heartedly. "Sorry, son."

"Nooo!" cried the prince, who headlong glanced at the one that had pulverized his efforts. "_Youuu!_ Now I'm never gonna know!"

"Don't be mad at her," said Simba, stooping to nuzzle his cub. "I wouldn't have said anything anyways."

"It's not fair!"

"I've already told you," he began, "that the Circle of Life's true nature is light, haven't I?"

"Yeah," replied the future king, rolling his eyes offhandedly, "the grass uses light from the sun, the antelope eats the grass, _we_ eat the antelope, blah, blah, blah…"

"Since we all have a place in the Circle of Life, we all bear a spark of that light within us. But you must always keep in mind that lights cast shadows, Kopa. And in some of us, the light casts shadows much too dark for us to control… and so they control us."

"Like Scar?"

"Like Scar," agreed the lion, exhaling deeply.

The golden cub scrunched up his face in concentration, making use of all his mental abilities to decipher his father's teaching but arriving at no satisfactory conclusions. "What does _that_ have to do with Cabha and the other king?"

"You'll understand when you're older."

_When you're older._ This wasn't the first time an adult evaded his queries with such a stupid answer. Putting up no further arguments, the future king gave up and compelled the uncertainty floating in his liquid thoughts to sink. Having waved Simba goodbye, he spun round and retreated to a cold corner where his body collapsed. Not long afterwards, his three playmates slumped onto the smooth stone floor, close to him. In glum silence, they admired the forbidden outside world through the rocky gateway that was now a transparent, impermeable screen to them. Only grownups and well-behaved young lions could pass through.

They day oozed away at a cataclysmically slow speed. Confinement changed the natural order of things: time became an abhorrent fallacy; reality and its constants lost their concreteness; thoughts and ideas spoke out loud; the craving for fun clawed at the back of their heads.

Envy coursed through the little ones' veins as they pictured the rest of the cubs, who had gone out to play in the grasslands right after Simba's departure, reveling in the fresh air and sprinting cheerily under the scorching sun. Their pelts might get all sweaty and dirty, not to mention that they could hurt themselves in many ways while pouncing on each other. But, putting aside any minor troubles, they would surely have a blast; they would be happy. And _happiness_ was priceless.

The glittering patterns of quartz and mica which embellished Pride Rock's stark walls enthralled Kopa as though he had never noticed them before. Hypnotized by the ceiling's dazzling complexion, he recalled, in fragmentary flashes, the night his father had talked to him about the kings of the past and how they always watched over their descendants from the stars.

Aazi and Raghu could not find anything with which to entertain their minds as easily, and so sorted out to doze the boredom off. For her part, Jill relapsed into her earlier state of uneasy reflection. Kev still hadn't arrived, and this was beginning to worry her. She could infer that he'd gone somewhere with Kiara from the evidence she'd gathered, but assumptions didn't help much. She needed something more certain to rely upon: a fact.

It wasn't until the sun begun its slow descent back into its tomb that she learned her brother's whereabouts. Nala, having just returned from the savannah, offered Jill a bath when she stumbled into her. She was much more relaxed than before; that much the outsider could tell. A spark of disappointment still beamed from her sapphire eyes, but all hints of frustration had vanished.

Her tongue slid consecutively from the girl's neck all the way down to her rump. At times, it would proceed the other way around, tousling her hair and electrifying her spine with slight shudders. The queen would issue barely more than a giggle whenever these frissons of discomfort shot through the white cub. As soon as she was done grooming her back, she gently flipped over her furry body between her paws and started cleaning her underbelly.

"Do you know where Kev is?" asked Jill just as Nala licked her left hind leg.

"Yes," answered the tan lioness. "Kiara took him out early this morning to get his fur cleaned. He was feeling much better."

Jill's face creased in bewilderment. "Couldn't she do it here?"

"Oh, no," chuckled Nala. "His fur needed _special_ cleaning."

The white cub hummed pensively, oblivious to the five tongue strokes that had soaked her chest in saliva. She'd forced herself to think of the gooey fluid as a shampoo of some sort. Years ago, she'd employed the same technique to overcome her broccoli phobia. It was in her nature, as is probably in every living thing, to polish life's many imperfect facets to grant the 'gem' an altogether attractive structure.

Kopa approached his mother softly after a while, leaving Aazi and Raghu to their snoozing. He sat idly in front of her, eying her with an honest sad frown that crashed into her soul like a tidal wave.

"Honey, what's wrong?" she inquired, quite shocked.

"I'm sorry, Mom!" he burst out, breaking into fit of choked wails. "I didn't mean to worry you… didn't know it was off boundaries… I… I…"

He dashed forward abruptly and buried his head in her fur. "Please don't be mad!" he sobbed disconsolately.

Nala interrupted her current task and cuddled the prince. His guilt-ridden stare shifted slowly upward until her smiling face figured in his field of vision.

"I love you; I love you _so_ much," muttered the queen, bestowing an affectionate lick upon his cheek. "If I had lost you…"

The sentence was left hanging in the air; she couldn't imagine a world without her son in it.

Kopa kissed his mother and rubbed his head against her neck, purring tenderly. "I love you too," he said at last, and lay down next to her.

By the time she drove her attention back to Jill, the white cub had succumbed to a sweet sleep.

* * *

Sorry about the delay. My college schedule (preparatory course, actually) is pretty tight; I have about 3 hours of free time from Mondays to Saturdays. My updates will be ever more occassional (one every two months, approximately), but I do intend to carry this story to the end. I'll try to post more lengthy chapters to make the wait worthwhile ;)

Thanks a lot for reading this story! And keep reviewing! :DDD


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

The night had been barely more than minutes dead when Rafiki woke up safely in his cozy baobab tree. Despite the exploding thunders and heavy rain, which had disrupted his rest more than once, he had managed to sleep off his fatigue quite successfully. The cold noises his ears had grasped in his state of unconsciousness echoed across the old corridors of his head only to fall silent, like insignificant mumbles, as his faculties slowly returned to him.

Snatches of past events teeming with faces and voices time had worn away glowed in the liquid chasm between the worlds of reality and dreams he was currently submerged in. His father's teachings, which had molded him into the wise (and slightly eccentric) shaman he was today; the mellow life and peacefulness of the jungle, where he'd been born and raised; the beginning of his friendship with the Pridelanders; Mufasa's death; the battles against Scar and Zira; Kiara's betrothal to Kovu; his joys; his sorrows: all his distant memories crawled out of their dusty tombs to hang around with the fresher ones.

While they shambled and shuffled like hungry zombies in his yet numb mind, a bright beam of sunlight perforated through the thick leaves that composed his home's ceiling and bathed his face in an unpleasant gold.

His protuberant skull ridge wrinkled in discomfort and his eyes shut tighter at this unanticipated strike of nature. A hollow yawn issued from his mouth. Everything around him looked utterly contorted and blurry when his lids split apart. At first, his arms flailed about, as if he'd lost control over them, feeling for something to hold on to. Gripping a droopy branch, he pulled himself up and waited for the drowsiness to vanish completely. Once it did, he surveyed his humble dwelling in a pointless search for anything out of the ordinary.

The chilly gusts of wind that had patrolled the cloudy night had misplaced one or two of his belongings. Apart from that, pretty much everything else had made it through the storm.

From the branches spreading above him hung about a dozen castanets he himself had fashioned in his youth, when he'd become obsessed with the percussive music of his forefathers. His multicolored potions lay still in the corner where he'd left them. The split coconuts that contained them all appeared to bear the same aspect, but each presented minuscule differences with respect to the others which anyone who paid close attention would notice. He'd spent a big deal of time procuring them, and twice as much organizing them according to their varied effects on animals; a single drop of some could heal the sickest elephant, while an equal amount of others would bring down the healthiest leopard. In the opposite corner, upside-down, lay a shell that had once belonged to a turtle. The baboon had stuffed it with a bunch of fruits which, if not susceptible to rotting, could supply his body with energy for the rest of his years.

Losing any of these rare substances and artifacts would have frustrated him very much, especially considering the ordeal behind his lifelong pursuit of them. If the rain had rinsed clean the wall facing his sleeping spot, though, he would've felt devastated. After all, he regarded it by far his most valuable possession. On it, he'd practically painted the history of Pride Rock. Each and every ruler, along with its family members, figured in Rafiki's records.

The shaman stretched and, after groping for his staff through the dim space, treaded forth to admire his artwork. More rays of lucid gold broke in, streaking smoothly past the tangle of boughs and leaves to erase the shadows from the wall. The prince's young outline, imprinted in the center, contrasted with the somewhat worn images of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Rafiki still hadn't drawn a mane around his neck, but he would when he grew up. For now, all Kopa needed to do was bask in the simplicity of cub hood; responsibilities and duties would arrive further along his path.

"You will grow to be a noble king, now, won't you, young prince?" he chuckled, beholding the cub's frame with a knowing smile.

He then turned a gaze of awe toward three figures preceding that of the future monarch. The kingdom had prospered under their paws, and when Simba's time as ruler fell beyond the rim of the horizon, it would in Kopa's.

Before Rafiki's erratic ideas about the past and the future could push him into a state of uninterruptible pondering, the sight of Kiara and Kovu on the wooden surface caught his attention. Mufasa's spirit had chosen the black-maned lion as his son's heir to restore peace in the Pridelands, or so had the monkey guessed. With the prince's birth, he realized that it was truly useless to try and understand what the ancestors and the Circle of Life had planned for mortals.

Even though the princess's mate didn't turn out to be destined for the throne, everything had worked out for the better. In fact, he didn't really seem all that interested in the privileges of the title. What he desired more than anything so strongly, he'd already gotten. Thanks to _him_, of course.

The pride, now that he thought about it, was doing better than ever. Yet, a puzzling worry pecked relentlessly at his guts like an angry heron.

_But why?_

As his screen of vision slid down toward the contours of two other cubs, the reason flared like a newborn flame in his brain. A chalky powder conferred a unique pale resplendence on their bodies.

He wondered if he'd done the right thing in revealing his discovery in reference to the outsiders to Simba. The night the little gang had crossed the borderline, which happened to be the same in which Rafiki had confided the information to the prince's father, he'd witnessed his reddish-amber eyes burst wide open as he delivered the incredible truth.

Well… By the end of their conversation, the lion looked like he hadn't believed _one_ word of his story. He didn't blame him; the natural order of things is engraved deep within all living beings' souls. Therefore, any elements contradicting that order will often arouse confusion and, most notably, fear. Maybe living in denial was safer; understanding the white cubs' situation completely would entail delving into unworldly secrets best left unveiled.

Hypnotized, the mandrill maintained a sad, dizzy focus on the rudimentary portraits until a voice he instantly recognized cut his thread of reasoning with its scissor-sharp pitch.

"What are you doing?" it uttered irritably.

The distracted baboon veered round brusquely and caught sight of a blue hornbill perched on an upper branch. Much distressed for being interrupted, he glowered wearily at the wondering bird.

"Just thinking," he said, casting a dreamy stare back at the wall.

"The King sent me to let you know that princess Kiara will be bringing the white cub for an examination. As you probably already know, he has fallen terribly ill."

"He must've caught something from that loathsome Kuzimo pride," he added under his breath whilst glimpsing away.

Rafiki's visage filled with perplexity. "The white cub is sick?"

"The male," specified the major-domo, and, seeing as the monkey had stolen back into the intricate delusions of his wise mind, showed himself out after articulating an indistinct goodbye.

"I'll be expecting him," the shaman whispered five minutes later, unaware that the messenger had departed.

_Sacrifice_. That was the windy word the two cubs' images hissed into his old ears through the pores of the wood. But the outsiders would not face it alone. _Yes. _He could see it: the entire kingdom would stand right by their side to aid them in their making of the necessary sacrifice, whatever its nature.

He just hoped it wasn't the ultimate kind.

* * *

"Why do I have to get in _there_?" protested Kev, his eyes glinting with disgust at the repulsive sight of the mud pool in front of him.

This day had proven to be one of his worst so far. Definitely, nothing matched the vibrant reminiscence of his latest misadventure: his bold expedition to the dangerous Kuzimo Kingdom. He could conjure no words to describe the fear that clawed at his heart when the blood-red afternoon had discolored and been almost instantly replaced by the bleak hues of the night.

_And Irushimpa's threat…_ If the demons of the past ever took pity on his damaged soul and decided to let go of him, he would surely dream of those deadly hazel orbs squinting down at him, reveling in the foresight of sadistic bloodshed.

The princess had nudged him awake early in the morning. The fading night had put up its last efforts to remain in the sky but, as the poisonous glimmer of the rising sun grew stronger, it soon disintegrated helplessly into invisible vapor. Upon opening his eyes, the white cub realized that his muzzle was comfortably pressed against a lioness' belly, whose scent differed tremendously from Kiara's. The stony ground where he lay didn't smell like his usual sleeping spot either. Additionally, he could feel two young snoring bodies warming him; one rested on top of him, exerting a light pressure on his chest with each of its deep breaths, and the other pressed against his back, having its tail tautly twined around his left hind leg.

As he hadn't reacted to the first push, Kiara jabbed him again with her muzzle, to which the cub replied with a pained meow. Guala, awakened by the alarming cry and Kev's breath clashing against her fur, rose slowly and, not before exchanging a kind greeting with Simba's daughter, gingerly removed her son from the outsider's prostrate form.

The newborn's weight gone, Kev lifted himself up and aimed a quizzical stare at Guala, as if awaiting an explanation on her part as to why he'd slept next to her.

"How are you feeling, dear?" inquired Guala, smiling tenderly at him.

"I guess I'm feeling good," he muttered, glancing back over his shoulder at the Princess, who bore an even broader and toothier smile below her anxious brownish eyes. "A bit too full, but good. What did I eat last night?"

The lionesses shared a mischievous look and giggled, like they were keeping a funny secret from him. Kev tilted his head to one side, flummoxed by the females' odd gestures.

"What happened last night?" he asked, arriving at the conclusion that their acts of apparent mockery ought to have a link with some embarrassing event that might've taken place then.

Immediately, Kiara moved forth and sat next to Guala in order to get a better view of the cub's face when she told him. "You had Guala's milk."

Surprisingly enough, the information did not elicit the response she'd anticipated; his features, instead of deforming into an incredulous gape, froze and blanched as a reptile's would during a crisp winter morning. Hoping to wring at least a blink out of him, the Princess waved her paw before his static yellow irises and heaved a sigh of relief upon receiving the expected reaction.

The boy gulped back a moan of disgust, uncomfortably conscious of the taste lingering in his mouth. His heart rate increased as the information grew clearer and clearer. He strove to say something, but his tongue had numbed; all his muzzle could emit was a blow of warm air. Thus, rendered speechless, he shut his jaws tight and swallowed saliva until his glands ran dry, in a futile attempt to dilute the heavy milk sloshing within his stomach.

Meanwhile, the two females observed the peristaltic action of the muscles in his neck with the most peculiar expressions of curiosity.

His heartbeats dropped to their regular volume eventually, although not fast enough to not worry the lionesses. Having failed to nuzzle and lick him out of his inactivity, they addressed him tenderly and incited him to utter the easiest word or sound that sprang to his mind.

Kev lifted his gaze with difficulty, as though he'd lain locked inside a freezer for hours. "M-milk?"

"You were really weak!" interposed Simba's daughter, culling the most suitable words to offer a convincing and hard-hitting clarification. "If we hadn't taken that measure, you probably wouldn't be here talking to us right now."

The white cub remained quiet. He cast a wistfully thoughtful glare at the rest of the pride. Jill slept calmly, huddled up to Kovu; his friends slumbered on, wrapped in their mothers' hugs and running happily across the endless savannahs of their _own_ fantastical kingdoms, where they were all brave kings and queens.

Guala, fearing he might have entered another temporary state of vegetation, broke the perturbing silence. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," muttered the cub, snapping out of his thoughts. When he redirected his shimmering orbs toward her, she was blinded by the shining sadness that had suddenly spread through them. She could tell he wanted to communicate something to her but found it hard to do.

"Thank you… for taking care of me," he said at last in a rather shy tone, looking down and then up to her with a weak grin that almost killed her.

The lioness couldn't help but step forward and bend to cuddle the outsider. "Aww! You're welcome!"

Kiara, touched by Kev's gesture of gratitude and her friend's consequent display of affection, summoned a smile from the core of her soul upon her face. It wasn't until she remembered the reason she'd woken the cub up that a grimace of concern took its place.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" she burst out, rubbing her right paw on her forehead. "Kev, we have to leave. _Now_."

The male's expression creased with incomprehension. "Leave? Why?"

"We have to get your fur cleaned before taking you to Rafiki's," she explained hastily, and headed for the cave's mouth speedily. "Thank you, again," she said to Guala, her eyes falling first on her figure as she swung her head back before they landed upon the one beneath. "Come on, Kev! We won't get there in time if you don't hurry up!"

"But I can't move!" he objected, pointing at the tail curled around his hind leg with his eyes.

"Let me get that for you, dear," chimed in Guala, stooping over. As soon as she closed her mouth around the tail tuft, she started gnawing at it delicately so that its hold onto the limb would slacken. Her sleeping son offered some resistance, wincing and moaning faintly in displeasure, but eventually gave up.

Finally free and having expressed his gratitude all over again, he followed the Princess and exited the den alongside her. Outside, a mellow breeze travelled from the savannah to the elevated rock structure they stood on, softly brushing past their pelts. The sun had stagnated atop a thin screen of clouds, which was dissolving progressively into the sapphire skin of the sky. The morning's coldness permeated through his protective fur and constrained him to shiver periodically as they descended the slope leading to the open land.

The grass was soaked with dew; it seemed trillions of small pearls had scattered along the green carpeting of the ground. Halfway from their first destination, the location of which the lioness hadn't disclosed yet (all Kev knew for certain was that she would bathe him _somewhere_ and then haul him over to Rafiki's home, wherever that was), Vitani leapt out from behind a tall patch of shrubs. Her mysterious and swift apparition shook the outsider, but not the Pridelander. Her nose had already sensed her scent; therefore, she didn't evince as much surprise upon stumbling into her.

Something about Kovu's sister _kind_ of frightened the white cub. Maybe it was her pale complexion and the unusually dark gray shades around her eyes. Or, perhaps, the sick blue of her irises which, in a way, reminded him of _them_. But her rather aggressive demeanor intimidated him far more than her physical features.

Having replied to the Princess's friendly 'hi' with another surprisingly alike in amicability and addressed her little companion by a nickname some of his friends would normally tease him with, Vitani proceeded to elucidate the reasons for which she deserted the hunting party she'd been included in. She placed a strong emphasis on how she preferred having a rhino with thorns protruding from its feet trample her to being bossed around by Araka, the _lovely_ leader of her group.

Since she conceived no better way to occupy her free time, Vitani joined the duo in their stroll. They set out for the south at a sprightly pace and walked themselves to exhaustion. Along the way, Kiara's sister-in-law endeavored to make the experience as unpleasant as she could for the cub, not just by calling him names he disliked, but also by rankling him with witty banters regarding his most recent slip, which was the object of their journey.

They advanced in this fashion until they ran into a river. Fortunately, a large log traversed it perfectly and served as a bridge. Once on the other side, they contemplated the imposing view of a tenebrous forest of deformed trees. The plants' hard-fought contention for the vital rays of the sun had cost them their charm; furthermore, those without a decent height had perished in darkness and rested, rotten, beneath the taller ones.

"You afraid, _whitie_?" teased the pale lioness, smirking down at Kev. "Just don't wet your fur again, okay?"

"For the thirty-seventh time," retorted the outsider, gnashing his teeth testily, "it was an accident!"

"Oh, come on, Vitani," giggled the Princess, nuzzling the poor boy. "You're gonna heat him up. And you know how weak his bladder has proven to be lately."

"Hey!" cried the male, pulling away from his surrogate mother. "Whose side are you on?"

The adults snickered at his comment and entered the creepy hellhole with him trailing along after them. This zone existed amidst the Prideland's breathtaking beauty in such a filthy and wretched condition, that it would've struck anyone as an alternate universe. The deeper Kev strayed into the wasteland, the more certain he became that it was more of a bog than a forest.

Now, after having _suckled_ (the mere word was enough to make him feel nauseous) from a lioness, trudged through the savannah until the rugged soil had panged at his paws as if it had been made of rusted tacks, and wound up in the seventh circle of hell, he sat _here_: facing the bubbling mud pond Kiara and Vitani had led him to. And they _actually_ wanted him to plunge in!

"It'll take care of the smell," explained Kiara in reply to his earlier query. "Besides, everybody needs some pampering every once in a while."

"_Pampering_?" shrieked back Kev. "How is _this_ pampering?"

The princess, adding nothing further, inclined her head over the cub and picked him up by the scruff. Vitani sneered somberly at the sound of the frantic croak which escaped his mouth. Before he could squirm out of her grasp, his captor dipped him in the sticky gravy of the swamp until his head and a part of her muzzle were no longer visible.

Once released, he bobbed up violently and coughed out the murky water which had flown into his lungs. The princess stared back at her comrade, who laughed boisterously at her mud-stained nose.

Slinking furtively behind her back, she smirked impishly at an idea that, considering how pesky Vitani had been throughout the day, might have entered Kev's mind too.

Kovu's sister substituted her annoying guffaws for shrill screams of fright as she felt the strong push of a set of paws, but was hushed by a resonant splash. Thrusting her head out from under the surface in the blink of an eye, her expression of stupefaction rapidly shifted to a contemptuous scowl she speared at the Pridelander.

"Look what you did! My fur is _ruined_!"

"Hey! Now you're a black panther!" jeered Kev from behind, drawing her angry gaze toward him. He was going to carry on but, with the blazes in those orbs indicating the sort of physical punishment she had in store for him in case he should speak the _wrong_ words, deemed it wiser not to.

Shortly afterwards, the Princess, much to the other two lions' astonishment, jumped in as well, spattering their faces with the filthy substance.

"You're gonna pay for this," grumbled Vitani tersely. In return, Kiara splashed more of the gooey liquid at her and giggled heartily in unison with the outsider.

Their pelts thoroughly saturated with the sick color and dank smell of the swamp, the fatigued trio floundered out of the large puddle and plodded on until the ground became slightly sounder. Finding it easier to move over a somewhat more solid surface, they quickened their pace.

Many were the creepy qualities the land possessed: while most of the trees' leafless branches expanded upward in a strain to absorb the sweet radiation of the remote yellow star, the ones closer to the lions bent over the dark path, as if reaching out for them with their skeletal fingers; bony roots bustling with woodlice inserted themselves into the earth and sucked up its scarce nutrients, but couldn't dig deep enough to go unnoticed; lizards and other imperfectly camouflaged insectivores scurried along trunks on their tiny limbs and often caught bugs flying swiftly past with their long, sticky tongues; glowing eyes snuggled in the horrid vacuum-black backdrops hung behind the rows of tall vegetation to the sides of the track spied on the passers-by with voracious hunger.

Everything about it, including the small portion of the sky it looked up to, was utterly terrifying. Among the grotesque attractions contained within this gloomy maze, however, a shiny object placed almost imperceptibly beneath a hideous form that could easily have been a mangrove and between shaggy corpses of thorny bushes fascinated Kev.

If he hadn't known better, and his babysitters had lowered their rate of walking, he would've turned aside for a meaningless lapse of five seconds and investigated.

He could have sworn he'd seen a steel nail fastened to the lid of a wooden box: a _human_ box with the inscription "DYNAMITE" on it. Reason told him his _sickness_ (the one Rafiki was to relieve later on, assuming he _did_ suffer from it) had merely played a trick on his tired mind. That didn't preclude him from returning momentarily to the world that the puzzling and ill-natured force of fate had banished him from: that _alien_ existence he could only revive in dreams.

He stole a glimpse at it one last time. Detecting the silver spark no more, he scoffed at his own wild imagination and rejoined the chatting females.

As the day wore sluggishly away, so did his thoughts in regard to that particular matter. In no time, they were put out by the abominable shadows of his forbidden memories, deposited deep in his head.

The sky, vaguely overcast, gradually took on the most beautiful and subtle colors of the afternoon. The trio emerged into a relatively small clearing with what appeared to be a wide spring piercing its center. The crystalline water inside it bubbled gently and emanated sweetly warm vapors that fully unclogged their noses and purified their lungs.

Gorgeous as it looked, the sight could not divert Kev's focus from the fact that dusk would inevitably consume the decaying twilight flames in a matter of minutes. The sun would pass out of sight and invite the frightening evening in. Fortunately, the Princess's presence, along with her friend's (and, for the record, he hated to admit it), rendered the prospect of nightfall less undesirable.

Kiara stepped daintily into the impeccable pool and immersed her body in its transparent content. Her sister-in-law, in a much hastier and unsophisticated manner, followed her to wash the dirt off her pelt as well. Lastly, Kev, succumbing to the adults' consistent pressure, entered the geyser reluctantly.

The hot liquid permeated through his fur, rinsed away the layer of mud covering him, and soothed his sore muscles better than any massage seat he had ever tried. Ignoring the gossiping lionesses, the white cub closed his eyes pleasurably.

Inhaling deeply, he allowed the water to drench his soiled face. Thick bubbles fled his nose, exploding silently into a million tinier ones which ascended to merge with the air. When his head burst out again, his eyes swerved toward the princess, who, to his surprise, had hers clamped on him. The sullen radiance they emitted crushed the grin he threw at her.

"Kev, I've been wondering…" she uttered before their mutual staring jumped into a higher level of awkwardness. "Why can't you and Kopa just get along?"

"I don't know," he slurred wearily, avoiding her steadfast gaze.

The golden lioness bemoaned her impotence with a dismal sigh. "Believe it or not," she said warmly, a glum smile stretching across her muzzle, "he really likes you. He just has a weird way of showing it, is all."

"You're just saying that because you want me to apologize," retorted the cub sulkily.

"I'm not!" she interposed doggedly. "You're actually the first lion he ever… _got lost_ for."

This disclosure got the outsider thinking for a while. Kopa had sounded honest when he talked about his great surprise. And he _did _save his life that same night.

"I guess I can _try_ to work things out with him."

"That's all I want you to do," beamed the King's daughter, but for some reason then wrinkled her brows in frustration. "Now, why don't we have a little discussion about 'keeping within the Pridelands' boundaries'?"

"Hey," scoffed Kev flippantly, "that was your brother's idea."

"And you agreed to go with him because?"

At this point, the pale lioness, apparently bored with being a mere spectator and eager to take part in the unfolding drama, unbelievably enough, made a slightly playful remark in favor of the little one.

"What's the big deal, Kiara?" she started, attracting her companion's nettled stare, thus momentarily relieving the tension between her and the boy. "At least they didn't wander into the Forest of the Dead."

"If they had, who knows…" she muttered at a low pitch that was both mystifying and spooky."Maybe King Olwenyo would've found them and eaten them whole."

"Vitani!" blurted out the princess reprovingly. "You know we're not supposed to tell cubs those stories!"

"What stories?" chipped in Kev. He shifted his eyes repeatedly from left to right, locking them first on Kovu's sister's, then on Kiara's. "And what's the 'Forest of the Dead'? Once, I overheard the other lionesses and they…"

"It's nothing for cubs your age to hear about," interrupted his surrogate mother with a dissembled half-smile of tranquility. But she couldn't deceive him; evidently, the sole mention of the place and the name had shaken her terribly; she had even forgotten she was mad at him.

If he wanted to discover what she was hiding from him, he would have to employ a lion cub's most effective and lethal piece of weaponry. Hopefully he would pull it off like Kopa, Raghu, and Aazi had zillions of times before. He'd never given it a shot himself, but still…

"Please, please, please, please, _pleeease_?"

"Yeah, Kiara," snorted Vitani, curling her lips into a snarl-like smile. "_Pleeeeeeeeease?"_

The golden lioness splashed water at her friend, although not playfully. "You're _such_ a child!"

"I told you that you'd pay," exclaimed Vitani malevolently.

The outsider and the pale adult, certain that the reluctant princess would surrender sooner or later, awaited an answer avidly.

Their shimmering orbs and grinning muzzles slowly worked their way into Kiara; the distortions in her visage demonstrated it more than clearly.

"Okay," she sighed, giving up on her useless resistance. The two listeners shifted in the water until they were comfortable and perked their ears to miss not even the most trifling detail.

"For generations," she began, adopting the exact same solemn tone her brother and her father would when telling stories, "this has been a particularly creepy legend heard both in the Kuzimo Kingdom and the Pridelands."

Vitani rolled her eyes. "Just get to the part where it gets interesting."

The princess resumed her narrative, but not without first frowning coldly at her rusher. "According to our forefathers, a long time ago, when relationships between the two kingdoms weren't as tense, ruled one of the noblest kings the Kuzimo had ever known. His name was Olwenyo."

"Sounds kinda like _your_ story, doesn't it, whitie?" murmured the blue-eyed lioness into the boy's ear.

"Do you want to hear the story or _not_?" growled the princess.

"O-kaaay!" drawled Vitani. "Kev, be quiet!"

Kiara's eyes narrowed on her. "_Anyway…_" she mumbled through her clenched teeth as the object of her vexation grinned apologetically."One night, while he was hunting, his prey sprinted away in its escape and disappeared into the first rows of trees where the savannah ended and the woods began. Olwenyo, being brave and fearless, carried the chase to the forest."

Her unheralded pause granted a grave suspense to the story. She eyed her attentive hearers, exhaled, and picked up where she'd left off.

"None of the pride members ever knew what had really happened there, but one thing was evident: the Olwenyo that got out wasn't the same that had gone in. He never again took care of the pride like he used to; instead, he drew his full attention to the forest. He seemed to have been… _hypnotized… _by it. Every single night, he would sneak out of his den and venture into that horrible place."

"And one of those nights," contributed Vitani in a hiss much like that of a poisonous snake, "he didn't return."

"The Kuzimo never saw him again," sighed Simba's daughter, letting her comrade, who looked more than anxious to tell what was left to say, wrap up the tale.

* * *

By the time the sun re-enacted its daily setting, the trio had taken a shortcut back into the Pridelands, visited Rafiki to have its youngest member inspected, and made their way to Pride Rock. After a very meticulous examination the white cub felt more than uncomfortable with, the shaman had pronounced him to be in perfect health. The alleviation of their distress had affected their pace and, consequently, shortened their return.

Kev, exhausted by the surprises this day had brought on, collapsed in his sleeping spot, next to Kovu. Jill had apparently decided, as his tired eyes suggested to him, that she'd spend the night cuddled up to the young Prince. If the weariness hadn't claimed his mind to the point he didn't care at all, he would certainly have wondered about their odd intimacy. Perhaps even _interfered_. But, having been sapped of all his energy, he determined upon devoting his full attention to the subject in the morning, once he replenished his empty stomach.

Thus, he fell sound asleep, and it didn't take long for the golden lioness to do the same.

As the flaming sphere slipped unwillingly under the horizon, bright rills of fiery gold brawled across the clouds' misshapen rims and out of the darkening atmosphere. No sooner did the sky slide out of its twilight dress, than a cold silence swooped down on the kingdom.

Amazingly, rather than the strenuous tasks carried out by the adults at noon, it was the sharp transition from summer to autumn that had occasioned the pride's unusually early slumber.

Normally, adults would stay awake until midnight, in case any intruders were bold and _insane_ enough to venture into the den at such an hour (not that one who decided to do so during the day could be properly qualified as the opposite). Tonight, nobody but the royal couple stood up to the sandman.

Simba sat down right on the edge of the monolithic structure, like he sometimes would when seeking counsel from the ancestors. His amber orbs, lost in the beauty of the diamond sky glittering above him, swerved toward the sound of a sweet voice as it pronounced his name coyly. Ceasing their motion, they shimmered excitedly at the smiling face and precious sapphire irises before them.

Nala licked his cheek affectionately, a gesture he returned without delay. "Simba, what's worrying you?"

"It's nothing," he whispered reassuringly. But he could not fool his mate; something _did_ bother him, and she knew it.

The tan lioness rubbed her head against his neck in hopes of softening his troubled heart. "I know something's wrong. Ever since that night, when you went with Rafiki…"

"It has nothing to do with _that_!" snapped the lion, alarming the Queen. This was the first time her ears gripped a tone as such from him: one tinged with mingled fear and anger.

Aware of the strong effect his words had exerted on her, he started again with a milder yet slightly nervous manner of expression. "I'm sorry… it's just that… I…" he faltered, enlightened by no excuses whatsoever.

"It's okay," interrupted Nala, drawing another smile upon her muzzle, although the King could see it was contrived. "You had a hard day."

A choir of restless crickets tore down the seemingly indestructible silence which ensued after Nala had hushed.

She truly wanted to know what he was so resolute to keep from her. And he wished he could tell her and relieve his conscience in the process, but Rafiki had warned him not to. Even now, the baboon's discovery seemed miles away from possible; of course, it accounted for the outsiders' often strange behavior and more than occasional weird inquiries and baffling statements (well, Jill did not give herself away as much as her brother). Nevertheless, in spite of the not quite small shreds of evidence, it was all just too…_unreal_.

"It's about Kopa," he lied impulsively, compelling nature's monotonous symphony out of his head. "Earlier today, he asked _who_ Cabha was."

His son's question wasn't his main concern at the moment, but the whole issue _did_ add an extra weight to his laden mind.

Nala's cheeks sagged as soon as her mate expressed what she supposed had his brain so busy. "And what did you say?"

"I didn't tell him," declared the lion curtly, pushing a loud breath out of his lungs and pitching a broody glower at the glowing white speckles smearing the celestial black cloth. "But I'll have to, eventually."

"I know," nodded the queen, her eyes blazing in profound frustration. "I still can't believe Irushimpa was capable of such a thing. Maybe… maybe he _really_ didn't do it."

Simba, understanding her refusal to accept reality as it was, nuzzled the tan lioness and delicately whispered the fatal words she didn't want to hear. "You saw the marks on Cabha's body. It could only have been a lion. And she was in _their _territory when it happened."

"But it's just… _monstrous_! Simba, they didn't kill her; they… they _fed_ on her! What kind of lion does that?"

The red-maned male cuddled her to soothe the pain the mournful remembrance had evoked. As she nestled her head on his shoulder, she couldn't help but take into consideration all the possibilities, the broad range of presents the shards of the past could have formed if they had been rearranged differently. How would it all have turned out if Cabha hadn't strayed into Kuzimo land that crisp winter evening? Or if _they_ had paid closer attention to her?

Little could she imagine that her thoughts differed very little from her husband's. The sinister memories, too, haunted him like ghosts in search of eternal peace. Ghosts cursed to loiter forever in the world death had estranged them from, who frightened him with their repulsive silhouettes and dissonant murmurs. The loudest of them all freaked him out the most, and not only due to the fact that it sounded exactly like him; it urged him frantically to spit out the whole truth, no matter the consequences.

"Nala," he muttered feebly, "we never got to talk about the cubs; you know, about Kev and Jill."

A soft chuckle swam out of the queen's mouth. She pulled back gently. "You should've seen Kopa sleeping next to Jill earlier; I could have _just_ eaten them up."

A melancholy smile illuminated Simba's soul. His voice dropped to a strangely sad volume. "He's grown very fond of her, hasn't he?"

She nodded lovingly. "So… What _about_ the cubs?"

"Nah…" slurred the lion whilst gazing at the slim seam between the earth and the sky."It's no big deal."

The tan lioness leaned against her mate; her warmth crossed over to his body as his propagated through hers, obliterating the effect of the chilly air; their tails entwined smoothly.

Regardless of the obstacles life slung at them, they would have each other to overcome them. And, so long as they stayed together, they would never be beyond hope or rescue. _Never. _

Upon realizing this, their troubles faded away slowly, like the blackest of shadows, under the cascading moonlight.

_Rafiki must be mad_, Simba told himself, as he watched the stars burn sickly far off.

* * *

"_I'm sorry."_

_The words resonated metallically through Jill's head, forcing her lids apart. Where was she? She remembered meeting with Kev, in the cemetery, the night after they'd vanquished Alyra and set her coffin on fire. He'd mentioned something about a vision. About a warehouse… _

_Had he? Yep. He'd instructed her to wait for him while he searched for Lucian. Once he drove a stake through his heart, he would return so that she could put one through _his. _That was the closure they had carefully planned on._

_But _something _had meddled, wasn't that right? Otherwise she would not have woken up _here_, confined to a prison of endless dark. _

_She cautiously walked forward with arms outstretched, lest she should bump into any indiscernible hindrances. Anybody wary of her presence (she strongly hoped nobody was, though) would surely have burst out laughing at her mummy gait. _

"_Can anybody hear me?" she yelled, but received no reply other than the unearthly echo of her own voice._

_At a certain point, an intense chill bombarded her spine with deep shivers. Although she'd felt it too when she'd opened her eyes, it had grown stronger now. The petrifying coldness coursed through her veins like a lethal dose of morphine. She'd never experienced anything quite like it before. Not even in the worst of winters. _

_"Why is it so cold in here?"_

_"It's the cold of the tomb."_

Who said that?

_Jill spun round violently. As she stabbed a gaze of shock into the strange speaker's glowing yellow orbs, she released a weak cry through her trembling lips. Whether her frame quavered from cold or from fear of the ghastly apparition, she could not have adequately clarified if her life had depended upon it. _

_The sight of the creature chased all confusion and doubts away from her mind to cram it with despair. His inhuman eyes and pale, moon-white skin were not his only unsettling traits; the man wore old clothes and exhibited an odd hairstyle, as though he belonged to another century._

_Jill backed away subtly. Notwithstanding, for every one step she took, _he _advanced two. _

"_Your eyes... You're different from _them. _Who are you?"_

"_I never had the opportunity to meet you, my dear," gasped the man in an astonishingly friendly tone. "But I'm certain that you _do _know me."_

"_I've never seen you in my life!" the girl protested fervently._

"_Indeed, you haven't," he countered, and offered a slight bow. "I am the King of Bats."_

_Jill flinched as each and every word pervaded her incredulous mind and acquired a dreadful meaning. "Lazarus! No… Y-you…" she stuttered, her chest rising and falling spasmodically. "He was destroyed long ago! You can't be him."_

"_But I am," grinned the fiend, displaying the fangs that marked his direful nature. "Precisely, this is the place where our spirits are sent when the body collapses. And the cold... Oh! It's unbearable, wouldn't you agree?"_

"_I'm not dead."_

"_I'm afraid you are, my dear," he said, clearly feigning compassion. "Your brother couldn't contain himself. The lust for blood was stronger; it always is."_

_Her heart broke into a session of wild drumming, only the beats resounded in her head, not her ribcage. Kev could not have killed her. He… He'd gone to that warehouse… to hunt Lucian down. Someone else must've attacked her! _

_Quite frankly, she had nothing but this _monster's _word to formulate any theories about her fate. And she had _every _reason to distrust him. _

_Yet, she didn't; his declaration seemed so awfully plausible she couldn't just dismiss it._

"_But it was fate: a tragic death befitting a tragic life. What were you doing in that mausoleum, anyway?"_

_She faced away, concentrating on the darkness which, compared to the eerie brightness of his blazing eyes, felt surprisingly pleasant. "I… It's a secret."_

"_Oh, I bet you love secrets!" he cried out cheerily, gliding toward her like a swift gust of wind. "There's a skeleton in every closet. And yours is full of them, isn't it?"_

_He stopped a few inches away from her; she could feel a malignant aura around her like the slimy tentacles of a giant squid. "It was such a cold evening for you to be there."_

_Jill quaked. "Evening…"_

_The man raised an eyebrow at her reaction. He spilled his icy hands on her shoulders and, as his brimstone breath wafted into her nostrils, gave vent to a lunatic cackle. _

"_Why are you so frightened of the evening? Don't tell me! I think I know the answer; the evening holds another secret, doesn't it? One that speaks and tells you what to do."_

"_Shut up!" she screamed, tears sliding down her cheeks while she plastered the palms of her hands against her ears. "Please, shut up!"_

"_You mustn't be afraid," he murmured soothingly, and gingerly turned her around. "No one can hurt you now. Besides, this place isn't too bad once you get to know it. I'm sorry I won't be here to keep you company, though."_

_Jill's gaze, tainted with disbelief, shifted languidly upward until it cleaved to his pasty countenance. "W-what do you mean?"_

"_I've always known how to circumvent death, but never how to break free from her claws… until _now._" _

"_So you're saying you'll live again?" she smiled coldly. "No one can escape death. Not even _you._"_

"_I can," said the King of Bats. "And I _will. _I promise you that, Jill… Jill… Jill… Jill… Jill… Jill…"_

"Jill, wake up!"

* * *

**AN:** Hi! Did you miss me? You may have noticed that there have been some _little_ adjustments to chs. 1-4. Everything is explained in ch. 1. But you don't have to read the whole thing all over again if you don't want to. Besides, I still haven't posted the improvements to chs. 5-7; that, now that I think about it, would have taken FOREVER. Well, that's the price I have to pay for wanting to be a doctor... :/

What else? Oh, yeah! Please REVIEW! You can also check out and review the improved chapters! You might understand things that you didn't get the first time. The adjustments of chs. 5-7 will come eventually, although I can't say exactly when. For now, I hope you liked this chapter.

By the way, what do you think is going on now? If you combine the information from previous chapters, you can actually solve about... 70% of the mystery! :D


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

* * *

_Kev slunk steadfastly toward his destination. He crept stealthily from shadow to shadow so as to elude the few roaming living. In spite of the insatiable bloodlust biting him inside, his pace proved inhumanly smooth and silent, for, rather than moving by steps, he glided along the cold sidewalks and alleys._

_Jill was to wait for him in the mausoleum where he'd hidden his coffin with a stake and a hammer. It comforted him to know he would at last find eternal peace, that this great trial would come to an end. For that longed-for sleep, his parents, and his dear sister, he could not afford to fail._

Tonight's the night_, he mused._

_The more he advanced, the dirtier and poorer the buildings surrounding him became. Presently, he wound up in the city's bleakest neighborhood: a squalid locale languishing away beneath the Bedford Bridge, not far from the southern highway. The dilapidated dwellings in it contained corroded walls, broken shutters, and scratched wooden doors, and harbored outcast families living under equally miserable conditions. A vast number of protuberances and potholes flawed the narrow streets, troubling the passing of even the most promising vehicles. No streetlights shone upon this human wasteland, so darkness enveloped it completely on cold evenings like this. _

_Soot and poverty had so much corrupted the community, that it seemed even God himself had abandoned it. Maybe that was the reason Lucian selected the old warehouse as his hideout. No angel or mighty godlike authority would ever dare defy him in such cursed land._

_Kev jumped over the low fence separating him from the ramshackle edifice and inspected it grimly. Long, uneven slices of wet cardboard concealed the shattered windows; moonlight reflected in tenuous silver gleams from the aluminum roof; the scent of death whiffed out through the many cracks upon the brick walls._

_He drew out a wooden stake from his black trousers and, whilst testing its sharpness with the tip of his index, marched to the door. Since the spiteful owner had locked it, Kev had no choice but to force it open with a hard twist._

_Sweeping in furtively, he surveyed the dark interior with his specialized nocturnal vision. The room had undergone a terrible devastation: all sorts of tools, from heavy steel spanners to insignificant iron nails, lay scattered about; the damp walls reeked of sewer water; the dusty shelves stood tall before him, like stout, hungry giants. He could discern chalk traces upon the ugly wood flooring, too. By the look of the blurry symbol they had once constituted, he reckoned what their purpose might've been. Everything fit with that odd dream he had after Alyra had intercepted him._

_Indeed, he'd come upon Lucian's lair. Why was _he _the only one present, then?_

_The sharp bang with which the door slammed shut obliged him to reconsider. Fearless, he wheeled round and gazed sternly at the dark figure which blocked the exit._

_"I underestimated you, Kev," said the spectral entity, starting forward calmly. The scarce moonlight that made it into the refuge rinsed the shadows off his face. Nothing about him had changed since Kev's first encounter with him at the party. His blond hair, his crystalline eyes, his moon-white skin… Every wicked feature of his had survived, except that ill, _toothy _grin. A frightening upturned smile had taken its place._

_"What did you do to Alice?"_

_The fiend grimaced in dishonest surprise. "Pardon me?"_

"_I was supposed to meet her the night your sister attacked me," explained Kev, now glaring at the man. "I'm certain that _she _did something to her, and I want to know _what _exactly."_

_The man expelled a wretched cackle and glimpsed down in mock grief. "She's dead."_

_A flame of mingled sorrow and fury wavered in the boy's pale blue eyes but quickly died down again. Deeming it pointless to maintain the conversation, he fastened his grip on the stake and threw himself at the undead creature, dashing along the dusty floor at a speed no ordinary human would've caught with his eyes. He executed three brutal slashes and finished with a deadly stab. _

_To his amazement, none succeeded in inflicting the intended damage; they merely sliced the air._

_"Youngsters…"a supercilious voice drawled behind him, "always _so _predictable."_

_Kev turned to his foe, ready for another strike, when he felt an excruciating pain burn through his guts. Shifting his gaze down on the affected area, he noticed that the haft of a dagger protruded from his abdomen, and that the whole blade had disappeared into his vest and skin. _

How did he do it? _If he planned to beat him, Kev could not allow him to deliver such surprise attacks. He ought to be faster. _Smarter.

_The boy enclosed the handle in his spare hand and pulled the weapon out slowly, his shredded entrails squishing within him as he removed the obstruction. Copious amounts of blood flooded out of the wound. He flung it aside and, once again, prepared to fight. By now, the creature had retrieved that stupid grin of his. And his fangs, as well as his creepy eyes, seemed to glow in the dark._

_A sudden weakness spread through Kev, beginning right where the dagger had rested, then travelling to his arms and legs. He started convulsing frantically, as though an electric current were flowing through his spine. No sooner did his quivering hand drop the stake, than his body lost control and collapsed. Blood kept spurting from the cut and gathered in a sick crimson puddle about him. _

_He just couldn't understand it. Why hadn't the bleeding stopped already?_

"_Hawthorn sap," explained the eerie man, as if he'd read his mind, while he walked past Kev and bent over to pick up his weapon. Wiping the blood off the blade with his sleeve, he glowered down at his paralyzed victim. "It can be deadlier than a cross or a stake."_

"_What's happening to me?" he hissed, gritting his teeth in agony._

_Lucian squatted on his heels beside him, his pale lips curled into a malicious sneer. "You're dying again. That's how the sap works: it's a quick and effective killer. But before you turn into a pile of ashes, you should know why I killed your parents… and why _you _will die as well."_

_Upon attracting his attention, the fiend carried on. "Did you learn anything about _my _parents, by any chance?_

_"I know," he panted with difficulty, "that Lazarus and Haza were destroyed more than two centuries ago."_

_"Good! It seems you did your homework. And do you have any idea _who _was responsible?"_

_Since the boy replied in the negative with a languid shake of the head, the inquirer answered the question himself. "Your ancestor, Desmond Hart. The bastard broke into our house with his angry flock of foolish believers. And they carried in their crosses and their hammers and their _goddamned _stakes."_

_He paused to let the information settle adequately in his dying listener's mind. "He destroyed them all, Kevin: my father, my mother, my sisters. The four of us that made it through that night swore to never rest until your entire family suffered the same fate as ours…"_

_"Four?" interposed his victim in shock. "B-but that's impossible. There are only _three _of you."_

_Lucian smiled with delight at his look of disbelief. "As far as _you're _concerned. Before your parents' death, you knew nothing about us… and you still don't, apparently."_

_"It's been a long journey," he continued, a spark of melancholy flaring in his chilling voice, "but it will be over at last. By dawn, those who bear the blood of Desmond Hart will all have perished."_

_In a desperate effort, Kev summoned up the little energy he had left to fumble for the wooden stake with the tips of his fingers. The poison coursed through his veins like a powerful anesthetic, deadening his senses one at a time._

_"Now, if you'll excuse me," concluded Lucian in his very proud and self-possessed manner, "I have to go kill your sister."_

_"No!" screamed the boy frenetically. The unanticipated threat spurred his arm to perform a reflex stretch. He grabbed hold of the weapon he had been blindly seeking all along and, without hesitation, buried it in his enemy's chest._

_Gouts of blood burst from the deep gouge as he sprang back abruptly. A deafening screech of pain and astonishment broke out of his mouth before he staggered and finally landed on his back. A look of stupefaction cleaved briefly to his white face, but evolved into one of utter dismay when, having reviewed the latest events, he came to acknowledge death as inevitable in what was his last train of thought._

_A rough wave of heat brushed past Kev's cheek. Though his eyes no longer functioned (the sap had finished its job there), he listened to the faint crackling of bones and burning flesh quite well. The putrid smoke soon dissolved into the room's stifling air, as did the monster's tainted soul._

_The boy remained motionless on the floor, relishing the profound sense of triumph that pervaded his heart. He was at peace with this world and more than ready to cross over to the next._

_"Yeah," he laughed. "Tonight's definitely _the _night…"_

"Kev?" a familiar voice whispered into his ear, blowing away the sight of the spooky warehouse. It was Jill.

The white cub let out a weary yawn, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The dream flashed like lightning before them and amidst the overcast of memories inside his head.

Over the past days, the picture had grown bitterly clear. Despite the evidence presented to him during his naps, he couldn't bring himself to admit the obvious truth. That Alyra had killed him. That, undoubtedly, he had risen as one of _them_.

But he escaped, didn't he? Somehow he'd survived Lucian's attack. Somehow he'd woken up somewhere in the African savannah, free from the cruel stigmas of his former existence. Some benign force he could not fathom had transported him to Simba's kingdom so that he would find hope and happiness in a fairer and more _normal_—so to speak— life.

Notwithstanding, no matter how hard he tried to forget, he knew that _they _would always haunt him. He could play with the rest of the cubs like a genuine child, feed upon the raw flesh of zebras and antelopes, learn a lion's hunting techniques; basically, he could put into practice whatever these admirable felines taught him. At the end of the day, though, the past would strike back in misty fragments and show him his true nature.

"_You can't escape fate," _a monstrous creature had warned him in one of his first dreams. And maybe it was right. Maybe _this _was the illusion. Maybe someday he would open his eyes only to stumble upon the lid of his coffin, to discover that Pride Rock would never be anything but a far-fetched fantasy. Certainly, that possibility sounded way more logical than the other, the one where the talking lions and the savannah were actually real.

His sister set her muzzle close to his ear insomuch that it twitched lightly. "Are you listening?"

Wrapped in his surrogate mother's protective hug and an adamant reluctance to renounce his sleep, the male deigned to utter a grunt of displeasure, then hid his face in the Princess's comfortably warm fur.

His twin did not give up her endeavors; even though tapping him repeatedly on the back and tugging at his ear resulted in no productive outcomes, she presently came up with the perfect motivation: the _one _thing that would compel him to hop to his paws in the blink of an eye.

"Kopa's right behind you, you know?" she started, smirking down at him. "And he mentioned something about a… '_Kev waking procedure'_?"

Instantly, her sibling's lids snapped apart, his black pupils swelling in the absence of light. His body quavered intensely while his limbs pitched frantic kicks and punches at the snoring lioness in a desperate attempt to squirm free. His tail writhed like a chopped earthworm, terrified by the prospect of being reintroduced to the vicious jaws which had so often mistreated it. The she-cub strove to shush him and hold him down with her forelegs, but he had entered so deep a state of panic she could accomplish very little.

He shook and screamed, begging Kopa to _please _not bite his tail between choked sobs, until the Princess, rankled by the child's restlessness, tightened her hug and soothed him down in slumberous mumbles, assuring him her brother wouldn't _dream _of messing with him at such an ungodly hour.

Reluctantly obeying, he kept quiet and braced himself for the seemingly inescapable sting. Luckily, the prolonged stillness of his surroundings proved Kiara right. His heart rate decelerated, his muscles relaxed, and his hard panting reverted to his regular breathing. All hints of nervousness gone, the white cub slung a disapproving, bloodshot stare up at his sister, who bade him have a word with her outside.

Kev wriggled out of the lioness's grasp with utmost caution and lollopped sleepily behind Jill toward the cave's mouth. On his way out, his ears perked at the soft patter of little paws. Some cub might've fallen into the unconscious habit of sleepwalking, he reflected, giggling inwardly.

As he gazed at the stars as they hovered high above, the male cub wondered how anything could bother his sister so much as to goad her into disrupting his slumber, especially when the whole world swam in a somber calm. A vague idea of what the cause might be then sparked in his brain. Hoping to be wrong, he ventured to ask her what had deprived her of her sleep, to which Jill's relatively indifferent countenance crumpled into a crushing grimace. On hearing out her reason, he confirmed his theory.

"I had a nightmare too," he sighed despondently.

"But this one wasn't like the others," she objected, lowering her sad eyes. "It was scarier. I don't think I'll be able to take it much longer. It's… it's driving me crazy."

Her voice had teetered on the edge of breaking toward the end of her speech. Conceiving no other means of consolation, the male nuzzled up to her. His brotherly warmth disseminated quickly through her body as a silvery murmur tickled her eardrums.

"For the time being, there's nothing we can do."

"There is," she retorted, softly pulling away. "On our way back from the Kuzimo Kingdom, Kopa told me that he and Nitara agreed to meet at the borderline, _tonight_. He promised to show her that thing he wanted you to see_._"

The boy's jaw dropped incredulously, his face crinkling up in anger. "_What? _W-why? Did he get a recent blow to the head?"

"Just _listen _before you start freaking out!" she scolded him, glancing back into the cave to make sure his shrieks hadn't aroused commotion. "Now he's waking Aazi and Raghu. We'll _all _go."

"Oh, you wanna bet? If you go through with this, I'll tell Kiara… I'm warning you. And I don't care if she grounds us for life. This is _insanity_!"

The awry frown upon her muzzle straightened gradually only to deform into a broad snarl. Bowled over by her frustration, she swiped at her brother, channeling all her fury into her right paw, but stopped just before it scraped his cheek. If her latest nightmare hadn't worked her up so much, she would definitely have carried that wallop to the end.

"I can't do this anymore!" she snapped, violently thrusting her face into his chest and soaking his fur in tears. "I'm _not _okay, can't you see? This might be our only chance to stop those dreams, and you're not even willing to consider it."

Somewhat baffled by her unheralded switch in mood, Kev set his arm around the disconsolate girl, patting her back while she sobbed. "You really think it'll work?"

Having cried and snuffled all her angst away, she drew back slowly. "Kopa tried to describe to me what it was he saw," she stated after clearing her throat. "He didn't do it very well, though. It must've been something he'd never seen before. I _think _I know what it is, but I have to be sure."

A compassionate half-smile flicked across the boy's muzzle. He fixed his sympathetic gaze on the stone surface and then redirected it toward her shimmering orbs. He would've exposed the sundry dangers involved in wandering outside the cave at night; discussed the terrible consequences in which their adventure would culminate, should the lionesses find out they left; delved into the possibility of getting lost and never be found; emphasized the very irrationality of her suppositions. He might just have talked her out of it. However, the Prince interfered before he could give any of that a shot, sneaking up on the twins and briskly announcing that all was set.

Aazi and Raghu exited the den on the tips of their toes and rallied round the expedition's leader. All instructions and conditions set forth, the gang started for the northern boundary, where they would meet their Kuzimo pals—the Princess had stressed that she'd require the assistance of her _'mighty guardians'_(referring to Ekevu and Bakari) for so dangerous a journey—to then head together for Kopa's mysterious spot.

Along the way, Raghu pretty much clung to his best friend and bombarded him with repetitive queries regarding their destination and annoying comments on how cool and infallible his plan was. In turn, Kopa, fascinated with the brilliant spotlight, replied to his constant flattery with an arrogant air of lost modesty. Kev and Aazi trailed along behind the noisy duo. The white cub, to everyone's surprise, did not oppose the future king's proposal as much as expected. In fact, instead of denouncing them to Kiara like he'd vowed to do, he determined upon joining the adventurous group. He had by this time more or less assimilated the cubby conception that nothing could possibly go wrong, to say nothing of his strong desire to weed out the nightmares that had taken root in his subconscious. Besides, Uzima's daughter took it upon herself to keep him from speculating on all the risks. For the first time since their _little _accident, she mustered up the courage to express a detailed apology for her late behavior and, having sealed it with a cuddle, held a friendly conversation with the male. For her part, Jill strode alongside the two reconciled friends. Unlike them, she did not participate in any lively chats. Lazarus's voice still reverberated in the core of her being, and each word seemed to rip out enormous chunks of her soul; it felt like the deadliest poison had somehow seeped deep into her. She needed to corroborate his account of the facts with conclusive proof, for, in her heart of hearts, she could not believe her own brother capable of the inexcusable crime the demon had accused him of.

After some time, the brave quintet reached the borderline, where the younglings gathered into a no less braver octet. The Kuzimo had arrived a short while before, and were beginning to doubt whether the Prince of Pride Rock would keep his promise, when they spied five small silhouettes in the distance. Irushimpa's daughter lost a significant portion of her enthusiasm upon catching the female outsider next to the boy she claimed was to become _her _mate. Initially, she refused to go on with the expedition out of plain jealousy, arguing that she would not have _those _(pointing her paw at the twins) '_abonations of nature'_ in her regal presence, and harshly commanded her guardians to turn around.

In spite of the mispronunciation, Kev interpreted the insult very easily. He wondered if she'd learned the term from her father. For a reason he refused to acknowledge, it stung him quite hard, but all the same he did not object to Kopa's running after the indignant cub. Neither did his sister, although her resentful glare suggested she didn't exactly hold her in great esteem.

Once he coaxed her into reconsidering, Simba's son allowed the trio to debate on a final decision and padded back to where his friends had sat down. Not long afterwards, Nitara beckoned him over to inform him that she wouldn't mind having the outsiders tag along this time, provided that no such outrageous exceptions would be needed on future occasions.

The Prince acceded to her terms after mulling over them for a short while. When he veered back toward the white she-cub and contemplated her clueless expression, a pang of remorse struck his heart, a twinge so painful he could've dropped to the grass and wept. In agreeing to the Kuzimo Princess' terms, he felt he was actually betraying his treasured friend. But he had no intentions of chickening out. Not now. Not in front of Nitara's friends. Not in front of _her._

The conflict resolved, the little ones bounded merrily to the east end of the boundary, where, according to your respectable and _supercool _majesty, the surprise lay on display. Sometime during the excursion, the male outsider became aware that the land bore an eerie resemblance to the foul neighborhood in his dream. A moment ago, tall grasses and diverse shrubs abounded; he could even feel the pleasantly moist soil which nourished them under his paws. Now, that cornucopia of healthy vegetation had withered away on a coarse and arid ground. The autumnal winds wandered around the fields, ruffling the scorched grass and wilted bushes.

They had walked for more than twenty minutes when the Prince skidded to a halt before an imposing rampart of sky-scraping trees. Their wide trunks, swathed in barks that could easily have been older than mankind itself, divided into many gaunt boughs which stretched upward and amassed into practically impenetrable wooden tangles coated with thick green leaves.

The borderline went no further; the territory beyond, the so called 'Forest of the Dead', belonged to no one. As far as the Pridelanders and Kuzimo were concerned, this piece of unwanted wilderness extended for miles across the rest of the African continent.

A sepulchral silence swooped down on the younglings as their guide called to their attention one of the front wooden columns. Moonlight shone upon the strange symbol engraved on the trunk, unveiling its ugly contour. It looked like a failed attempt at a giant overturned star that someone had hastily scratched into the ancient bark. Additionally, the talentless artist had left lots of meaningless claw marks above and to both sides of the more elaborate design for aesthetic purposes. No adornments proved necessary to create a strong impact on the viewers, though; upon recognizing the seal, a cold shiver ran down the outsiders' spines.

"This is it!" piped up the golden cub, addressing the male outsider victoriously. "That's the weird thing you mentioned in your story."

Kev stood scrutinizing the imperfect drawing, his mouth agape. If anything frightened him more than the sight of the misshapen emblem, it was the prospect of staying long enough to meet its designer.

Seeing as a knot had formed in her brother's throat, Jill deemed it wise to speak for both. "Maybe we should go back now," she proposed, her tone juddering fearfully.

"Yeah," chimed in Ekevu, his brown eyes glistening with concern. "We heard the legend about King Olwenyo and this forest. Nobody who gets in makes it out alive again."

The Prince glimpsed back over his shoulder, appalled. "What legend? I never heard of it before." Subsequently, he flung an excited smile at Kev. "I bet it has something to do with the monsters. The ones with the bloody snouts, remember? Oh, what was their name again?"

The outsider snapped out of his trance with a raspy groan. "Never mind. Jill's right; we _should _go back."

"Don't worry, Kopa," interjected Nitara, glowering reprehensively at the _abonation _for having sown doubt into her future mate's mind. "My dad says it's all just a bunch of superstitious nonsense."

Jill stepped forward, positioning herself to the golden cub's right while the Kuzimo Princess sat down to his left. "I don't think it's a good idea to go through with this."

On one ear, the white girl tried to make him see how bad things could turn out for everyone if he didn't recede, whereas on the other, her rival beguiled him into carrying out the original plan, resorting to the most seductive gestures. The turbulent crossfire, nonetheless, did not last very long.

"Okay!" concluded Irushimpa's daughter, outraged at Jill's fervid protests. "I guess I was wrong about you, Kopa. It seems you're still a scaredy _kitty_."

With those last two incising words, the demon vanquished the angel, and the bunch sealed its destiny by trooping into the creepy woods behind its suddenly-resolute leader.

For a relatively long time, they trod along the rotten carpet of fallen leaves, skirting around the barky towers and often freezing at the ghostly hooting of nocturnal birds and the distant howling of prowling hyenas. Much to the outsiders' relief, no scarlet-mouthed monsters ever showed up. Wild mice would occasionally scurry past their paws and squeak in pain whenever unintentionally stepped on, but that was pretty much all.

Arriving at the conclusion that he had arranged the trip in vain, the Prince at last whirled about to put an end to their fruitless exploration. All of a sudden, an overwhelming wave of distress crashed into his determined expression. Glints of growing disillusion beamed from his amber orbs as they swirled within their confines in search of someone who was supposed to be among them but had unaccountably vanished.

_Where could Raghu have gone?_

The cavernous gloom swallowed the whooshing breeze, the skittering rodents hushed, and the leaves quit chafing noisily against each other. The woodland stood still for almost one whole dismal minute.

The little ones called out the missing cub's name and peeked behind trees for any hints of his whereabouts, but he was nowhere to be seen. No sooner did despair and anguish spread among them, than they realized that they themselves had strayed farther into the woods.

What would their parents think? What if they didn't find their friend before dawn? But… What if they _did _stumble across him? What if he was floating lifeless in some deep, murky puddle? Or lying badly injured somewhere out of reach?

Unspeakable terrors usurped their thoughts while they rummaged through the thorny underbrush for the stray cub. Little could they imagine that they _would _come upon someone in short time. Someone that neither the Pridelanders nor the Kuzimo had ever met. Someone who would scar their lives beyond repair.

"Raghu!" cried out the golden cub to the thick ceiling of branches and leaves blocking the sky, his ears pricking at a loud swish. Swinging his head in the direction where the whistling sound had originated, he caught a glimpse of a small, blurry figure whizzing along behind a row of wooden pillars.

"It's him!" Kopa yelled, and immediately shot after the earnest sprinter, panting heavily and imploring his playmate to stop.

The others did their best to keep up with the boy's frantic pace, although to no avail. Tears sprang to their eyes as they commenced a much less hopeful search for the two males. Their hearts raced between their palpitating lungs with fear of having lost another comrade. The darkness was subsiding by degrees, and they could make out the stones and thickets around them better than before, but that by no means made their current mission any less difficult.

Any living being can undergo only a certain amount of torment before their mind's lucidity darkens and eventually clouds-over helplessly. Each and every subject to torture will at some point surrender his or her sanity, for the brain, being programmed to ensure the individual's endurance, demolishes all social and moral barriers when threatened by a very hostile outside. Hope drowns in an ocean of utter distress and the foreboding sense of danger ignites one's primary instincts. Consequently, there is simply one dilemma to ponder over: whether to live mad or die sane.

The bold party staggered dangerously close to this threshold, but a high-pitched croak from the Prince echoed through the miles of towering trees and rescued their sinking sanity just in time.

_"Who are you?"_

Chasing down his quivering call, they presently wound up behind the Prince, who stood facing the stranger he'd mistaken for his best friend. Said stranger, a most peculiar she-cub, raised an eyebrow in apparent bewilderment, perusing her assailers from a safe distance. A happy smile flickered across her muzzle when her gaze alighted on the outsiders' trembling figures. Like theirs, her pelt was as white as the moon. She looked altogether like someone who'd lost a significant amount of blood; dark gray shades encircled her eye sockets and her legs shook terribly, as though laden with an overpowering languidness. Moreover, her irises emitted a somber glimmer that made Kev tingle all over. They differed tremendously from Nitara's and Raghu's, hers being of a bizarrely sick blue color. A _dead _blue.

Kopa pressed his paws against the earth, digging into it with unsheathed claws. He growled out his inquiry once more to receive no answer. Then, the queer girl did something that flummoxed not just him, but the entire group: giggling ecstatically, she bounded cheerily toward her vexed inquirer and rubbed her flank on his.

The boy's snarl slackened as he reassumed an idle stance. "W-what was that?"

The stranger ignored him and proceeded to welcome the rest with equally friendly nuzzles and licks. Gazes of disorientation fell upon her after she had finished extending her overly kind greetings. One of the Kuzimo —Nitara, perhaps— even grumbled '_weirdo_' in a muted voice.

"Wow!" she gasped in awe, beaming at the audacious explorers. "You're all so colored! Well, not _you _two, but you're still…"

At this point, she threw herself on her back and burst out guffawing like a lunatic. The stray cubs shared a glance of worried befuddlement before refocusing on her rolling body. Repeatedly, Simba's son attempted to end her unremitting laughter with shy interpositions, but only the need to refill her lungs prompted the odd girl to mellow out.

They considered shifting slowly around the furry hindrance and padding away without looking back. If she called out for them, they would simply pretend they didn't hear. If she started following them, they would turn a blind eye to her and move faster. The last thing they wanted was a wacky wanderer topping their already big heap of trouble.

Unfortunately, she scrambled to her paws very suddenly, thwarting the gang's wordlessly devised escape. "What are you doing here in the dead of night?" she asked, tilting her head to one side.

"Ehmmm…"slurred the future king, still a bit startled by her recovery. "We are looking for a friend that got lost."

Her brows contracted in disappointment, a frown displacing her energetic smile. "Oh, that's too bad."

"But you know what?" she blurted out in a brand new outburst of felicity. "My dad knows these woods better than _anybody_. I'm sure he would be more than happy to help you find your friend and lead you back home!"

"That would be great!" shrieked Aazi, hopping closer to the unknown white cub.

Both boys and girls heaved a loud sigh of relief and scooted precipitately after their new guide, who'd set out for her dwelling at a sprightly pace without prior notice. Their minds bustled with so many crazy emotions they even forgot to introduce themselves. Not only would they reunite with Eshe's son, but they might even make it back to their respective dens before dawn. If they sped up, of course! Their mothers would wake up to find them lying snugly by their side and bestow a loving lick upon their foreheads, oblivious to their mischief. Very soon, they would relate their story in strict confidence to the other cubs and be venerated as heroes for their unrivaled mettle. This horrific night would fade away along with countless others behind the backdrops of the past. Very soon, indeed.

"So," muttered the Prince amiably, attempting to break the ice, "your pride lives here, in the forest?"

The girl nodded, virtually _leering _back over her shoulder at Kopa. And there Kev saw it again! That eerie glow in her eyes...

The white male fell into a grave state of coma, as if an artery in back of his neck had suddenly popped. Fearing their companion would collapse like he had done on the previous journey, all the little ones but the stranger rushed to his aid. As they sniffed and scanned his body for clues of an illness, they endeavored to erase his disturbingly blank expression by asking him whether he felt alright. Although he did not speak right away, the forceful utterance that eventually passed his lips hit his worried listeners harder than a buffalo's horns.

"We're not going with you," he declared, turning a grim glare on the expectant girl seated a few feet away from him.

"Oh, great!" grumbled the Kuzimo Princess under her breath, locking her testy stare on her husband-to-be. "We're not listening to this loony."

"She can lead us back home, Kev," Aazi chipped in, to which all the others nodded in blind agreement. The thin reddish ring encircling her dilated pupils glistened under the weakening rays of moonlight.

Hereupon, the boy held up his pale visage, disclosing the tears of dread tucked in the corners of his eyes. His friends watched in static dejectedness as they grew and at length rolled down his face. Deeming it an auspicious moment to grant him and the rest of the gang a break from the irksome drama, his sibling imposed silence by caressing his neck with hers.

She rubbed her nose affectionately on his cheek, whispering soothingly into his ear. "It's okay. You can tell me what's wrong."

"We shouldn't follow her," he argued, matching his sister's volume. "She's lying, Jill… She… She's a _vampire_."

Normally, an ordinary girl would boorishly reject such a preposterous accusation. But being extraordinary in the literal sense of the word, Jill believed his brother the second he identified the white stranger. She threw a fearful glimpse backwards at the supposed night dweller. Her pasty muzzle exposed a cadaverous grin, her blue orbs freezing on hers. Jill could read the mockery and thirst concealed behind her mirthful countenance.

Facing the creature, the female outsider explained in a diffident tone that _they _(speaking on the whole group's behalf) would rather search for their friend on their own and thanked her for the offer anyway. The Pridelanders and Kuzimo sighed hopelessly, but not one of them —not even Nitara— questioned her call. They could sense something was amiss and thought it best to comply meekly.

The young adventurers had started in the opposite direction, and plunged back into the impure tranquility. Before they could make twenty steps, however, the odd girl's cheery voice swam into their ears from behind, only now it struck them as maniacal and sinister. The shriek she spewed through her fangs shot through their bones like poison. They stood petrified right where they'd halted, a sharp feeling of mingled bewilderment and apprehension seizing their consciences.

"I was wondering when you'd come out into the open, guys," she called out as gleefully as ever.

The siblings spun round brusquely. Two male cubs which bore an uncanny resemblance to the enigmatic girl had mystically materialized out of the dying gloom and now sat staring raptly in their direction. Their creepy eyes blazed like hers, like the flames of a falling star. And they were precisely that, weren't they? _Fallen _outcasts who roamed the world without a single heartbeat.

"Well!" exclaimed the eldest of the boys, clearly feigning excitement. "Kev! Jill! What an unexpected surprise! At the risk of sounding banal, it's a small world, isn't it?"

Upon seeing their grimaces of utter dread, he frowned affectedly. "What? You don't remember us? Come on, guys! I suppose you _do _recall having met my lovely sister, Alyra." He laid his paw down on the she-cub's shoulder. In turn, she giggled and curtsied to the group.

"And my valiant little brother, Aiden." He who was recently introduced emulated his sister's salutatory pose, smiling malevolently at Jill. He craved for revenge; the female outsider could perceive the rage within him struggling to break out of its cage. If the sun didn't somehow rise earlier than usual, he would pacify his incensed heart soon enough anyway.

They could not fight back. _No. _They were at their mercy. How long it took their appetite to get the better of them depended entirely on destiny.

"I don't think an introduction on my part is at all necessary," the eldest proceeded, hopping forth and eying the spectators as if their deaths were written in blood upon their foreheads. "However, for the sake of good manners, I suppose I'll provide one… I am Lucian, the Prince of Bats and Spiders."

Aazi blinked perplexedly at the mention of the eerie title and instantly related it to a conversation he'd held with Kev. He'd whispered something about a '_Queen of Spiders_' in his sleep, she recollected vaguely.

She would've inquired into the twins' apparent fear of the three strangers, and the others would most likely have done so too, hadn't their white partners cut them off to reveal the macabre truth about the unusual cubs.

"They're not vampires!" scoffed Simba's son, pointing his paw at the queer trio. "I mean, they're supposed to be scary, and have blood dripping from huge fangs, and… and…" He ransacked his memories for another distinguishing feature of the creatures. "They're supposed to be _dead_! They look quite alive to me."

"Forget what I said!" the boy barked back. "We have to get out of here! _Now!_"

Alyra's flirtatious reply drew the Prince's sulky glare toward her. "We can make it fast and painless, darling. You have nothing to worry about."

"Oh, please! You're no different than _we _are," stated Kopa confidently. "You'll _see…_"

A weak growl rumbled in his throat. As soon as the grumble rose to a cubbish roar, he leapt forth with his teeth bared. He sprinted his way to the female of the trio like a grownup hunter, employing the same techniques Simba and Kovu had more than often striven to teach him. Although he'd failed repeatedly during practices and games, he had followed every step correctly now. The initial impulse. The quick unsheathing of claws. The light pounds against the earth which, according to his father, always had to be executed with the toes, not the heels. Indeed, under normal circumstances, he would've succeeded in tackling her.

These circumstances being everything but _normal_, the golden cub tumbled down helplessly when the girl bestowed a careless swipe upon his nose. His back thumped harshly against the soggy debris.

Alyra chuckled rapturously, her cold eyes zeroing in on the youngest of her siblings. Decoding her sly sneer, the white cub threw himself over the fallen prince, shoving him harder against the ground so as to prevent him from wriggling.

Lucian puckered his lips in fake pensiveness. "Now, what are we going to do with you? Hmmm… I think we're gonna gut you with our bare claws, little guy. How does that sound?"

Alyra cut in joyfully with a complementary idea. "How about we castrate him first?"

"You're brilliant, dear sister," he rejoined, smiling approvingly at her. He squinted down at the trembling figure of the future king. "Aiden, you know what to do!"

In the meantime, the bunch beheld the hair-raising scene unfolding before them in openmouthed astonishment. The strange she-cub had knocked down their leader with a single movement. And, amazingly, she didn't require assistance from her claws or her two spiteful cronies in order to achieve it.

Having drawn the little silver blades tucked in his toes, the fiend on top of Kopa slid his right paw smoothly down his whitish underbelly until reaching the lowest portion of it, right between the legs.

"Leave him alone!" begged Jill, her bitter tears eliciting the cruelest laughter from the merciless villains.

"What do you want from us?" yelled her twin, condemning their jeering with a quivery and yet remarkably furious voice. "Revenge?"

"_Revenge?_" growled Lucian, blowing air out of his lungs like a heated bull before a red flag. "Oh no, Kev. This is no longer about revenge. Believe it or not, it's about _survival_."

"But he's just a _kid_!" he pursued shrilly, his sister supporting this claim with a grave nod. "He's no threat to you!"

For an instant, it appeared the unearthly creature would actually give some thought to the request. However, his lips gradually disclosed a contemptuous sneer that incinerated all hope.

"Tell me, Kev," he muttered inquisitively, "what's the cat to do when the mouse is begging?"

Glancing back over his shoulder, he winked an eye at Aiden so that he would proceed with the plan. Kopa writhed and screamed in a tremendous effort to break free, but the fiend maintained a much too stable hold over him.

The young ones braced themselves for the impending bloodbath, shielding their teary orbs and pinning their ears tightly to their skulls. In horror, they awaited the sick squishing sound of flesh being ripped apart and the accompanying screeches of excruciating pain.

Upon reopening them and not encountering their dying friend screaming in agony with a deep gash upon his belly and his entrails scattered about like fat, smelly worms, a quiet sigh of something close to relief slipped out of their muzzles. As luck would have it, _someone _they initially failed to identify had spared them that gory sight. A yellowish cub had dashed out from the thick forest shrubs and shoved Kopa's captor off, rolling along with him far into the ravenous shadows lurking behind the endless rows of trees. A loud bang resounded, followed by the acute cracking of branches. Or they could've been bones.

Simba's son, who'd recognized the flashing leonine body that had saved his life, sprang to his paws hastily and cried its name out into the void. "Raghu!"

The reply, if any was uttered, never made it to his ears. The cubs stared deeply into the woods, fearing the evil lion would leap out and lash out at them when they least expected it.

Such was the shock this frightening experience had brought upon them, that they didn't notice the other two fiends had vanished into thin air; the gloomy terrain where the shadows had devoured Eshe's son and the vampire had such a spellbinding quality, that the ghostly moans of nocturnal animals did not echo in their heads with the same bitterly distressing effect as before. All they cared for now was their friend's well-being.

The long wait proved almost impossible to endure. Tears streamed down all the sad, dirty faces. Woeful sobs added to the foul racket ruling these damned lands, rendering the heavy sense of danger present within each of them unbearable. The many tragic fates they had predicted for their friend when he had first disappeared beat on every single one of their thoughts like an expanding headache.

Eventually, a soiled yellowish figure crawled weakly out of the dense blackness. Raghu made use of all the power left in his languid legs to drag his injured body forward. He slumped onto the muddy ground next to his best pal, grunting dolefully. Salty streamlets adorned his cheeks and chin; a little blood dribbled down his lips.

Soon afterwards, a much more damaged entity lurched into view, stopping on a dismal spot faintly illuminated by moonlight. Of all the unforgettable images this lifetime had yet to show them, the one that cleaved to their screen of vision when they listened to the drunken shuffling of their foe and looked up at him would surely haunt them for countless nights.

The cubs stared on in disbelief at the grotesque wreckage Aiden had turned into. Stones had cut and bruised him severely from head to tail. His pelt had adopted a filthy gray color, the result of dust and blood mixing together. His right eyelid had purpled and swollen to the point he could no longer inspect his victims with the eye resting beneath it. Also, a bone in his left hind limb had ruptured; one of the broken tips had punctured through the flesh and skin and now lay exposed in a slant position. But the worst part by far was the sight of his bloody chest drilled by three crooked branches.

The news of his death blazed momentarily in his treacherous blue irises. His plaintive countenance ignited a bright remembrance in the back of Jill's brain, one that flared and crackled ragingly as gravity's unforgiving hand crushed the villain against the muddy carpet of dead leaves. As in her dream, the boy burst into vivid flames. The acrid odor of burning sulfur irritated the stunned spectators' nostrils, arousing gags deep in their throats. By the time the venomous smoke faded away along with the creature's last breath, just a small pile of smoldering cinders and the charred branches responsible for his untimely demise had remained.

The cubs—all of them save the outsiders—lay petrified before the decaying embers; their ears and tails did not perform the slightest twitch. The unreality of it all seemed too difficult to grasp. They had always enjoyed ghost stories and ancient legends linked to the gods and the supernatural, but they never thought they'd meet a genuine _vampire _in real life. Despite the long distance they still had to cover in the path of maturity, they more or less took the Circle of Life for granted. They could not understand how _anything _could violate it. All living things were supposed to abide by the rules of nature, weren't they? Be born. Grow up. Form a family. Depart to join their ancestors and guard their kin from above, amid the billions of stars.

But not _them_, it appeared. They didn't belong to the world of the living or that of the dead. They existed somewhere in between.

When the early morning breeze finished scattering the ashes, the younglings twirled around and trotted to assist their brave rescuer. They licked him, patted him on the shoulder, hugged him, praised his courageous deed. Notwithstanding, as he rolled over, grievous gasps hushed the boisterous compliments.

"It hurts!" he whimpered.

His belly, soaked in fresh blood, rose and fell frantically in hopes of pushing out the sharp branch which had punctured it. A shallow scarlet pool quickly formed about him, staining his pelt and the front of his friends' paws.

A throbbing sting flamed up his stomach muscles and soon enough started searing his nerves, wringing pained meows from the debilitated boy. The spark of life grew progressively dimmer in his sapphire eyes. He didn't suffer for long; his heartbeats quieted down rather spontaneously. In no time, he drowsed off into a cold and peaceful sleep.

The cubs tried to poke the motionless member of the gang out of his uninterruptible slumber with their soggy noses, begging him to utter _anything _at all. The response that stormed into their ears, though, was not articulated by their friend (his lungs had given up on collecting oxygen), but by two furious lions which sprang out of the dark from opposite sides of the forest.

Squinting menacingly at each other, they snarled and growled while four lionesses assembled close to the first and other five, along with a black-maned male, next to the second. Their rigid looks brimming with restrained rage foreshadowed a brutal scuffle. Without question, a bloody battle would've unfolded, hadn't the stirred felines fortuitously glanced down at the lifeless little body splayed between them.

"Raghu!" cried Eshe, jumping forth abruptly (almost running over the kids) and sniffing her son to check for vital signs. Detecting none, the tears of despair that had gathered under her lids burst out harshly, complemented by a loud cry which rendered the entire woods mute. She caressed the wounded area of his belly, imbruing the short fur on her paw with the oozing blood. She was disconcertedly aware that the warmth in him would waste away no matter how strong she hugged him.

Nala condoled with the grieving mother, shedding streams of sorrow while cuddling her. She had every reason to mourn. Not only had she helped Eshe through a tough labor; she had seen her child welcome the world's light into his beautiful eyes, take his first steps, and grow to become her son's most loyal companion. Indeed, she loved him too much to tolerate this tragic scenery.

The more fortunate Kuzimo and Pridelander mothers picked up their children by the scruff and stepped back respectfully, exchanging no threats or provocative remarks. The rival kings cast a dejected gaze at the mourning lioness. Given these _special _circumstances, they resolved to establish a temporary truce between both prides and, in a neutral area planted themselves on their haunches.

"Simba," whispered the Queen of Pride Rock, keeping her voice level despite the tears streaking her face, "you and the rest go ahead and take the cubs back home. I'll stay here with Eshe."

Not before the Kuzimo had sullenly crept out of sight with their children in their mouths did Simba deem it safe to comply with his mate's request. He bent down to lift up his disconsolate boy and quietly took off for the grasslands, the disheartened lionesses trailing along behind him.

As they weaved their way out of the woodland maze, the desperate wails of the bereaved female pealed ever weaker behind them. The yellow sphere had yet to ascend from its earthly casket, but its reddish orange light had already emerged and faintly stroked the sky. The vibrant colors of dawn would soon mingle with the brightening blue of the atmosphere and wash off all traces of this lamentable night.

A clear and gorgeous day was in store for Simba's kingdom, but it certainly wouldn't feel like one.

* * *

**AN:** So, did you like my villains? Sorry for taking too long to update; my studies are killing me! Anyway, the good thing is college in the U.S. (yes, I'm living there now, but only temporarily) is not as distressing as it is in Paraguay (not that it's easier; it's just that the teachers are way more fun-btw, my biology teacher is awesome!). Please review! And also, PLEASE write something other than "cool chapter"; I mean, it took me months to write this 8000-word chapter and, honestly, reviews that are too short and stark often discourage the author. The author wants to know how a story maAkes you feel, the emotions it conjures, whether he/she can work on improvements, your predictions, etc. :)

Anyway, thanks to all those who are still reading this story! :) (Btw, I saw the commercial about TLK 3D. Do you think they'll show the movie in Kansas City? I'm sure they're not going to show it where I'm living)


End file.
